Strategic

Someone accountable for the direction, not just the numbers.

At a certain size the finance question stops being "what happened last month" and becomes "which of these three routes do we take, and what does each one cost us". Strategic gives you finance leadership at director level: the plan, the performance view behind it, the systems that hold it together, and someone in the room when the decisions are made.

£3,500 per month, plus VAT
Book a call

Is this the right level?

This is for you if

You need a plan you can defend line by line, not a spreadsheet built the week before the meeting.
Turnover is roughly £2m and above, or below that with genuine complexity.
Your board, bank or investors want a level of reporting and challenge you cannot produce internally.
You have a finance team or a provider doing the work, and nobody senior setting the direction of it.
You are the person currently holding the commercial plan, and it is competing with everything else you do.
Decisions in front of you carry real consequence: a funding round, an acquisition, a new market, a step change in headcount.

This is not for you if

You are not prepared to give it time. This tier needs regular access to you, not a quarterly hour.
The decisions are already made and you want the numbers built backwards to support them.
You want a name on the website rather than someone who will disagree with you. We will disagree with you.
What you actually need is the monthly finance function run properly. That is Growth, at less than half the price.

What you get

What arrives every period, without you asking

  • Access between meetings. Decisions do not wait for month-end, so neither do we.
  • Systems and process work. Continuous improvement of how finance runs, so the reporting keeps working as the business gets bigger.
  • Funding readiness. Numbers, models and the story behind them prepared before you need them, not in the fortnight a lender gives you.
  • Board and investor reporting. Papers written to a standard that stands up to external scrutiny, and attendance when it helps.
  • An integrated performance view. Finance, operations and delivery data brought into one place, so you are looking at one version of the business rather than three departmental ones.
  • A living commercial plan. Scenarios modelled and kept current, so the question "what if we did this instead" has an answer the same week.
  • Senior finance leadership. A named strategic finance partner working at finance-director level, accountable for the finance agenda rather than reacting to it.

    • Where you are at day 90

    The change you should expect

    The first month is spent establishing the position honestly: what the numbers actually say, what the plan assumes, and where the two disagree. That piece of work is usually uncomfortable and always useful. By the third month you have a commercial plan with scenarios attached, and reporting that shows performance against it. Board and lender conversations get shorter, because most of the questions are answered in the pack before anybody asks them.

    After that, the change is in how the big calls get made. Major decisions are taken with a modelled view of the consequences rather than a feel for them, and where funding is in scope you are ready for it rather than preparing for it. By the end of the first year finance is informing the strategy rather than reporting on it afterwards, and you have twelve months of evidence for whether the plan was right.

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    See the first 90 days

    Before you book

    The questions we get asked

    Yes. Funder reporting and sitting in those conversations is part of the tier, and it is usually where the fee pays for itself first.

    board or leadership attendance, review calls, and ad hoc access.

    Good, and this is not their replacement. They produce the numbers. This is the person who sits opposite you and argues about what to do with them, which is a different job and usually a lonely one for an owner.

    State the real cover arrangement and handover documentation. Do not imply a bench that does not exist yet.

    A three day a week FD is 70,000 pounds plus employer costs, plus recruitment, plus the risk of getting the hire wrong. This is one person's judgement against a practice with systems behind it, and you can stop in ninety days. When you do reach the point of hiring, we help you write the role and sit on the panel.

    Bring the decision, not the accounts.

    Thirty minutes. Tell us what you are weighing up. We will tell you what we would want to know before making that call, and whether this is the right level for you.

    Book a call

    Not quite right?

    Step down

    Clarity

    £650

    Your figures taken apart each month and explained.

    Step down

    Growth

    £1,450

    Numbers that arrive before the decision, not after it.

    Step down

    Strategic

    £2,750

    We take responsibility for the finance function

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    Strategic finance advisors for businesses that have outgrown bookkeeping and their accountants.

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