The situation
A fast-growing technology consultancy billing in US dollars, with consultants in several countries. The founder was the finance function and knew it.
They had already let go of a bookkeeper and a VAT specialist for poor work, and the last corporate tax return had been filed on incomplete books. In their own words, they had no confidence in the numbers.
What we found
- Every invoice reviewed personally by the founder, because invoices kept going out with errors.
- Consultants chasing the founder directly for payment status.
- Everything manual: invoices raised by a team member, sent from the founder's own email and tracked in a spreadsheet.
- Consultants paid on payslips when they should have been raising tax invoices.
What we did
A full-year clean-up: bank reconciliations from January, a monthly profit and loss and balance sheet for the whole year, and the audit position put straight.
Took over invoicing, consultant payments, payables and receivables. Consultants were moved onto proper tax invoices.
A corporate tax review with five documented adjustments, cutting the tax due by 44%, and audit schedules prepared.
They had been let down twice already, so we had to earn the right to take anything over.
We cleaned the full year first, before taking on a single day of live operations. Only once the founder could see the year's numbers were right did invoicing and payments move to us.
Before and after
| Before | Now |
|---|---|
| The founder running finance alone | Finance off the founder's desk |
| Invoices going out with errors | One workflow, checked before it leaves |
| Consultants on payslips | Consultants on tax invoices |
| No monthly view of the year | A monthly profit and loss and balance sheet |
| A tax return on incomplete books | 44% less corporate tax, every adjustment evidenced |
What runs every month
Invoicing, consultant payments, payables and receivables, the monthly close, and live numbers on FinPulse.
