Services
Five modules and four ways to engage. Buy one as a focused project, or have us run the whole commercial finance function.
Advice, or the work?
There is no shortage of people who will tell a consulting firm owner what to fix. Benchmark reports, growth frameworks, peer groups, route maps — all of it useful, and all of it ending at the same place: a list of things you now have to go and do yourself, in the evenings, around client work.
We are the other thing. We rebuild the rate card. We reconstruct the utilisation numbers so they mean something. We build the model and run the monthly rhythm.
You are not buying a plan for a commercial finance function. You are buying the function.
Built for firms like yours
We work with owner-managed and scaling consulting firms — typically 5 to 150 people — where the founder or MD is excellent at delivery and sales, but carries the commercial side of the business alone.
Including the size most advisers won't take. Much of this market starts at twenty-plus people, or draws its line at a revenue threshold you have to clear before anyone will talk to you. We think that is exactly backwards. The commercial decisions that compound — how you price, what you count as billable, when you hire — are made long before that point, and they are far cheaper to get right than to unwind. If you are five people and the numbers have started to matter, you are the right size for us.
A full-time CFO is unaffordable and over-specified. Your accountant keeps the statutory accounts, but doesn't understand how your firm actually makes money. We sit in the gap: management, strategy, IT and data consultancies, creative and digital agencies, engineering and architecture practices, and specialist advisory firms — any people-based business that runs on utilisation, day rates, project margin and capacity.
What we do
Our work is organised into five modules. Buy one as a focused project, or have us deliver them as an ongoing service.
Pricing
Role-based day rates built on true cost, target margin and the market. Fixed-fee pricing frameworks. A clear discount policy and an annual uplift mechanism.
Profitability
Project-level and consultant-level margin tracking — so you see which work, and which clients, actually make money.
Utilisation & capacity
Billable-utilisation targets, planned-versus-actual tracking, and resource and capacity planning matched to your pipeline.
Sales & commercial operations
Proposal review, client qualification, commission structures aligned to margin, pipeline discipline and honest forecasting. We run the commercial machine and keep the numbers straight.
FP&A & the financial model
A monthly reporting rhythm, forecasting, a KPI dashboard — and a driver-based financial model linking utilisation to revenue to margin to cash for your specific firm. Few advisers can build one properly for a consulting business. It becomes the analytical backbone of every decision you make.
How we work
Four ways to engage, designed to build on one another. Most clients start with a diagnostic or a single project and grow into an ongoing relationship.
Commercial Health Check
A short, fixed-fee diagnostic of your pricing and commercial position, built on our own pricing and utilisation tools. In days, it shows you where margin is leaking and what it would take to fix it. Low-risk — and the fastest way to see how we work.
Fixed-scope projects
A defined engagement, typically six to twelve weeks, that installs one or more modules as a working system. You get a finished, operating capability — not a report that sits in a drawer.
Fractional commercial finance
Once the systems are in place, we run them: an embedded weekly rhythm of reporting, forecasting, pricing governance and capacity planning, on a fixed monthly retainer. The ongoing commercial finance leadership a growing firm needs — without the full-time hire.
Sale-readiness support
Heading towards a transaction? We get the commercial and financial house in order: clean, trustworthy numbers, project controls, and the analysis and documentation a buyer will demand. Drawn directly from experience on the sell-side of a consultancy sale.
Example fixed-scope projects
| Project | What you're left with | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|
| Day-Rate & Pricing Architecture | A rebuilt, role-based rate card on true cost + target margin + market benchmark; fixed-fee framework; discount policy and annual uplift | 4–6 weeks |
| Utilisation & Capacity System | Utilisation targets, a planned-vs-actual dashboard, and a capacity plan matched to pipeline | 6–8 weeks |
| Project Profitability Framework | Project- and consultant-level margin tracking, post-project reviews, WIP and overrun controls | 6–8 weeks |
| Commercial Operating Model | A proposal and qualification process, margin-aligned commissions, pipeline and forecasting discipline | 6–10 weeks |
| FP&A & Financial Model Build | A driver-based model (utilisation → revenue → margin → cash), forecasting process, KPI dashboard, board pack | 8–12 weeks |
| Sale-Readiness Pack | Clean restated numbers, project and revenue controls, buyer-ready commercial analysis | 8–12 weeks |
Every project leaves behind a live, working system — which means, if you want, we can simply carry on running it under a retainer.
What we don't do
Being clear about our boundaries is part of the service. It means you know exactly what you're buying.
- No lead generation, business development or marketing. We make the team, rates and pipeline you already have more profitable. We run the commercial machine; we don't fill the top of it.
- No statutory or compliance finance. Bookkeeping, statutory accounts, payroll, tax and audit belong with your accountant. We sit above that layer — though we'll happily manage those providers on your behalf, holding them to account so you don't have to.
- No performance-linked or contingent fees. Fixed project prices and fixed monthly retainers. You're buying a reliable, well-run commercial function — not a share of an outcome we don't fully control.
- No strategy, leadership or culture work. Plenty of good people do that, and some of it matters more than we do. We stay in the commercial and financial engine room, because that is where we are worth the money.
- Not a generalist fractional FD. We work only with consulting and professional-services firms, because the value is in understanding their specific economics.
Why Rule Four
- We do the work, not a report. Every engagement ends with something running: a rate card in use, a utilisation model your team updates, a monthly pack that changes a decision. If all you need is a diagnosis, the Health Check will give you one. Most owners already know roughly what is wrong. The value is in the doing.
- We show the arithmetic. This industry is full of confident numbers with nothing behind them — a target margin, a utilisation rate, a valuation multiple, none of them with a stated source or a range. We publish the working: where the figure came from, what it was calculated on, and how wide the spread actually is. You can check everything we tell you, which is the point.
- We've run these businesses. Finance and operations leadership through growth, from owner-managed to scaled — including due diligence and a sale. Not theory.
- Focused on consulting firms; broad across the business. We work only in consulting-firm economics — and within that, across every financial and operational decision that affects margin, not just one narrow slice.
- Straight about scope and price. Fixed fees, clear boundaries, no contingent gimmicks.
See where your margin is leaking
The Commercial Health Check shows you, in days, where profit is escaping — and exactly what it would take to fix it. Fixed fee, no obligation, and the fastest way to see how we work.
Book a Commercial Health Check Or try the free scorecard