This case has been anonymised; no specific company or individual is identified.
The situation we inherited
- Booked revenue did not match the scale of actual operations, with some flows outside the books;
- Many purchasing channels with inconsistent documentation, and inventory that had long diverged from the records;
- Mixed cash and electronic payments, with no clear route for funds concentration;
- Inconsistent filing positions over time, with matters from prior periods requiring explanation.
What we did
- Rebuild the data: starting from bank and payment-channel statements, reconstruct the time series of revenue and costs so the numbers hold up;
- Reconcile inventory: count by category and batch, establish purchase-sale-stock relationships, and attribute long-standing variances item by item;
- Unify conventions: fix the basis for revenue recognition, cost carry-over and expense aggregation, and put it in writing;
- Assess risk: review prior periods, list exposures, causes and remediation priorities, and separate what to fix now from what to phase in.
Outcome and next steps
Once the books were clear again, the business could see real monthly gross margin and cost structure; risk items were turned into a checklist and worked through progressively; day-to-day accounting moved into the Shared CFO management-accounting tier, bringing cash flow and inventory under routine monitoring.
What these businesses have in common
High turnover, complex purchasing and sales, mixed cash and electronic payments. The problem is rarely a single wrong entry — it is the absence of one consistent set of conventions. Fix the conventions first; optimisation comes after.