Practice area

Numbers and margin

Which work makes money, which work does not, and what the monthly numbers would have to show for you to know without asking.

one engagement
From $11,000
five to nine days

“We had our best year and there is no money in the account.”

We had our best year and there is no money in the account. It is the call we get most often in January, and the cause is almost always that one part of the business is subsidising another part in silence, with nothing in the monthly numbers shaped to show which.

We read the financial statements your accountant prepares and work out what they say about how the business is running — and then we go past them, because a profit-and-loss for the whole company cannot tell you which jobs made money. That means putting the accounts next to the job records, which is frequently the first time anybody has had both open at once, and taking the margin apart by job, by customer and by kind of work. The result is a picture with the workings shown, so you can produce it again next quarter without us, and a short list of the three or four changes that move it most.

What we would actually look at

In roughly this order

Your own statements, read properly, and what they say about how the business runs
The margin taken apart by job, by customer and by kind of work
Which work is subsidising which, and by roughly how much
How a job is costed now, and what the costing leaves out — setup is the usual answer
What the monthly numbers would have to show for you to know this without asking
The three or four changes that move the picture most, in the order we would do them

The engagements

What you can buy, and what it costs

Days are chargeable days. Weeks are the elapsed time, which is always longer. The fee is the first multiplied by the day rate and there is nothing else in it.

Numbers and margin. Days are chargeable days; weeks are how long it takes on the calendar, which is always longer. The fee is the day rate multiplied by the days and there is nothing else in it.
Engagement	Days	Over	Fee
Where the margin actually is	five to nine days	four to six weeks	$11,000 to $19,800

Where the margin actually is

$11,000 to $19,800

Your own statements read properly, then taken apart by job, by customer and by kind of work, so the profitable half of the business stops subsidising the other half in silence.

five to nine days over four to six weeks
partner day, $2,200

The first week: A day with your accountant's statements and your job records open together — which is often the first time anybody has put them side by side.

What you are left holding: A written margin picture with the workings shown, and the three or four changes that move it most.

How that fee is arrived at

Partner day× five$11,000
The same rate, at the long end× nine$19,800
Travel, materials and anything bought for youat cost—
What you would be quotedfive to nine days$11,000 to $19,800

The day rate is $2,200 and it is on the fees page. That multiplication is the whole of the pricing model: there is no retainer hidden inside it, no percentage of anything and no success fee.

Where this stops

What this is not

WE DO NOT PREPARE, COMPILE, REVIEW OR AUDIT ACCOUNTS AND WE DO NOT PREPARE OR FILE A TAX RETURN. That is a licensed profession and a different one, and it is your accountant's. The moment a question becomes what goes on a return, or how something should be recognised in the accounts, it stops being ours and we say so. We also do not put a value on the business and we give no investment advice: work that makes a business more valuable is not the same sentence as an opinion of what it is worth.

Everything we do not do, and who we send you to

A worked example

The fabricator whose small jobs paid for nothing

Light manufacturing and fabrication · Twenty-four people, one site in Maspeth

Revenue up two years running, the owner working six days, and the bank balance flat. Quotes were built from a per-hour figure that had last been checked four years earlier and did not include setup, and setup on a small job is most of the job.

What we did: Follow the job for two weeks, then every quote from the previous year put next to what the job actually took. Six days over five weeks.

The whole example

Every case study on this site is a composite. Every case study on this site is an illustrative composite assembled from several businesses. No client is named, no logo appears, and there is not a single testimonial on this website attributed to a person — a fabricated one would be the one genuinely dishonest thing a consulting site can do.

Worth reading first

Why the busiest month is often the least profitable one

Every business has a month where everybody worked flat out and the numbers came back worse than the quiet month before it. There are four usual reasons and none of them is bad luck.

Read it — about eleven minutes

Questions

Do you do our accounts or our taxes?

No. We do not prepare, compile, review or audit accounts and we do not prepare or file returns. That is a licensed profession and a different one; your accountant does it. We read what they produce and work out what it says about the business.

Will you tell us what the business is worth?

No. We do not give investment advice and we do not put a value on a business — that is a professional opinion with a licence behind it. We work on the things that make a business worth more, which is a different sentence and an honest one.

Numbers and margin · from $11,000

Start with the assessment, or telephone

The assessment takes about four minutes and gives you a written summary of what your answers suggest and which engagement addresses each thing. It is indicative and not professional advice, and it is a better opening than a blank contact form. If you would rather skip it, the telephone works and the first meeting is ninety minutes and free.

Take the assessment Call 000-000-0000