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Service

Business advisory and finance director support

Practical commercial support: forecasting, funding, pricing, growth planning and preparing a business for sale or succession.

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Business team planning around a table in a meeting room

Overview

Business Advisory explained

Running an owner-managed business is a lonely job. The decisions that matter most — whether to take the contract, whether to borrow, whether the price is right, whether to hire — usually get made without anyone to test the thinking against.

Our advisory work provides that sounding board, backed by figures rather than opinion. It ranges from an occasional strategic conversation to a part-time finance director role.

Benefits

What you get from it

Decisions tested with numbers

Before you commit to a hire, a lease or a machine, we model what it does to cash and profit.

Funding applications supported

Forecasts, business plans and lender packs prepared in a form banks and asset finance providers expect.

Pricing under scrutiny

Job-level costing usually shows that some work is subsidising the rest. Fixing that is often the fastest profit improvement available.

Exit prepared in advance

Businesses sell for more when the records, contracts and management are ready. That takes two or three years, not two months.

Included

What the service covers

  • Annual budget and rolling forecast preparation
  • Cash flow modelling and scenario planning
  • Business plans and funding applications
  • Pricing, costing and margin reviews
  • KPI frameworks and performance reporting
  • Company structure and shareholder agreements input
  • Exit readiness and business valuation guidance
  • Regular board or review meetings

Problems solved

Issues we see most often

Growth without cash

Rapid growth consumes working capital. Profitable businesses fail this way more often than unprofitable ones.

One dominant customer

Concentration risk is invisible until the contract ends. It also depresses the value of the business on sale.

No successor plan

If the business cannot run for a month without the owner, it is a job rather than an asset.

Process

How we deliver it

  1. 01

    Discovery

    We spend time understanding the business, the market and what you actually want from it.

  2. 02

    Baseline

    Current performance established properly, including the numbers nobody has looked at recently.

  3. 03

    Plan

    Priorities agreed and turned into a financial plan with measurable targets.

  4. 04

    Support

    Regular meetings to review progress, adjust and hold the plan to account.

  5. 05

    Review

    Annual reassessment as the business and your objectives change.

Local

In Scunthorpe and North Lincolnshire

Scunthorpe's economy is heavily weighted towards manufacturing, engineering, logistics and construction — sectors with long payment cycles and real working-capital pressure. Most of our advisory work here starts with cash rather than profit.

FAQs

Business Advisory questions

Typically a monthly or quarterly day covering management accounts review, forecasting, funding relationships, pricing and whatever decision is in front of the board. It gives you senior finance input at a fraction of a full-time cost.

Enquire

Talk to us about business advisory

Send a few details and we will come back to you with what we would do and what it would cost.

Send us an enquiry

Tell us a little about your business and we will come back to you with next steps.