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Independent review
An independent commercial review of what the numbers reveal about the business: where profit is made and lost, and whether the financial information available is supporting stronger decisions.
Scope and fee are agreed following an initial discussion.
Purpose
Strong businesses do not simply generate revenue. They convert it into sustainable profit, and they can see clearly enough to decide what to do next. Those are different capabilities, and the second is the one most often missing.
Margins reveal what pricing is really achieving. Cash flow reveals operational discipline. Working capital reveals efficiency. Forecasts reveal how prepared a business is for a decision it has not yet had to make. Read commercially rather than technically, financial information is one of the most honest descriptions of a business there is.
The question is not whether the numbers are correct, which is properly a matter for your accountant. It is whether they are telling you what you need in order to decide well.
When it helps
Usually when a business has grown past the point where the owner can hold the whole financial picture in their head.
Scope
These are sensible areas of enquiry rather than a fixed checklist. The emphasis shifts with the business, and we agree what matters most during the initial discussion.
Where profit is genuinely being made across the business, and where activity is generating turnover without generating much else.
How margin varies by service, product, customer or contract, and what that variation is telling you about pricing and delivery.
Whether pricing reflects the value delivered and the cost of delivering it, and where it has drifted without anyone deciding that it should.
Which costs are genuinely supporting the strategy, which are historical, and which have simply never been questioned.
How cash moves through the business, where it is held up, and how comfortably the business absorbs an ordinary bad month.
How efficiently money is tied up in the operating cycle, and what that is costing in flexibility.
What the business produces, who reads it, and whether it supports decisions or simply records what has already happened.
Which measures actually predict performance in this business, as opposed to the ones that are conventionally reported.
Whether the business can see far enough ahead to make commitments confidently, and how reliable that view has proved.
How the business would look under materially different conditions, and whether anyone has tested that rather than assumed it.
Where time, people and money are being directed, and whether that matches where the return actually is.
Whether the information available is sufficient for the decisions the business realistically faces over the next year or two.
Within the Aston Finch Value Framework, this review draws most heavily on strategic readiness and financial performance, while considering the business as a whole.
Deliverables
The report is designed to sit alongside the work your accountant already does, not to duplicate or second-guess it.
Boundaries
Please note
Prioritisation
Most reviews of any depth identify more than a business can sensibly act on at once. Listing everything we notice would be easy, and would not be much use to anyone.
So findings are ordered rather than simply recorded. Each one sets out what the issue is, why it matters commercially, how difficult it would be to address and what priority we think it deserves: immediate, within six months, within twelve, or a longer-term matter to keep in view.
The intention is not to give you fewer findings. It is to make it obvious which three or four would make the greatest difference, and in what order.
The fee
The fee
Scope and fee are agreed following an initial discussion.
Every review of this kind differs, so the scope is agreed before any work begins and the fee is confirmed with it. There are no packages, no tiers and no hourly rates.
Arrange an initial discussionAfterwards
After the follow-up discussion, the report is yours and there is nothing further to commit to. Many owners take the findings to their accountant, who is usually well placed to act on several of them.
Some ask us to help with particular pieces of work: building a forecasting model, setting up management reporting that gets used, or working through a pricing question properly. That is agreed separately if and when you want it.
Questions
Aston Finch is an independent advisory firm, not an accountancy practice. Our financial expertise comes from chartered accountancy experience, but this review is commercial rather than technical: it examines what the numbers say about the business, not whether they have been prepared correctly.
No, and it is not intended to. Your accountant prepares and files, and knows the history. Our contribution is an independent commercial reading of what the figures indicate and what could be done about it. The two sit alongside one another, and we are glad to work with your accountant directly.
No. We do not audit, verify or test the information provided to us. We work from what you give us and say so plainly in the report.
No. Tax advice falls outside the scope of this review. Where a finding has a tax dimension we identify it clearly, so that it can be considered with an appropriately qualified tax adviser.
Typically recent statutory accounts, management accounts, and whatever reporting you produce internally, together with a sense of how the business is structured and where the money is made. We agree the list with you first and do not ask for material we do not need.
Every financial performance review differs, so the scope is agreed following an initial discussion and the fee is confirmed with it. There are no packages, no tiers and no hourly rates.
No. The reviews are independent of one another and there is no required order. If financial performance is what concerns you, this is the right place to start.
Yes. Financial information is among the most sensitive a business holds. Everything you share is treated as confidential and used only for the purpose of the review, and we are happy to sign a confidentiality agreement before you send anything.
A short, confidential discussion is enough to establish whether this review would be useful to you. If it would not be, we will say so.