start with the number you keep avoiding.

Built from what actually went in and out of your bank, week by week — the direct method. A forecast built off the P&L tells you whether you’re profitable on paper; this one tells you which Friday payroll gets uncomfortable. It’s for companies that can quote runway in months but go quiet when asked for the week.

1. Week 1

   We pull 26 weeks of bank history, sort every receipt and payment into categories you’d recognise, and match them against AR and AP. You get a one-page note on what we found — often a renewal nobody budgeted and a customer paying three weeks later than their contract says.

2. Week 2

   The 13-week model, in your Google Sheets or Excel. Three scenarios: base, hiring freeze, and your two slowest payers slipping another month. Then a 45-minute handover so someone on your team can roll it forward each Monday.

Exit: stop after week one and you pay $1,925, and keep the categorised bank history and the findings note.

Twelve months of operating budget built around the headcount plan, because in a startup the headcount plan is the budget and everything else is rounding. Every assumption sits on its own tab with a person’s name next to it.

1. Week 1

   Revenue and hiring assumptions, worked out with the founders. This is where we ask when the new sales hire actually starts closing, and write the honest answer next to the hopeful one.

2. Week 2

   Two sessions with each department lead. They own their number; we make sure all the numbers add up to something the bank balance agrees with.

3. Week 3

   The draft budget, plus a two-page narrative for the board — what you’re spending on, and what you’re deliberately not.

4. Week 4, if needed

   Revisions after the founders or the board push back, then the budget-vs-actual template you’ll run every month without us.

Exit: stop once the headcount plan is agreed and you pay $3,200. Plenty of teams find that plan was the part they needed.

Investors ask for the model, the cohorts and the hiring plan within days of a first meeting. This gets all three built, made consistent with each other, and rehearsed — so the second meeting is about your business, not about why tab four contradicts slide eleven.

1. Weeks 1–2

   A 36-month three-statement model — P&L, balance sheet, cash flow — that balances, ties to your actuals, and survives someone changing an input while you watch.

2. Week 3

   Unit economics: CAC payback, gross margin by product line, cohort retention. Built from your own data, with the ugly cohorts left in. Investors find them anyway.

3. Week 4

   The finance folder of your data room, indexed and cross-referenced, so “can you send the March bank statement?” takes a minute, not an afternoon.

4. Weeks 5–6

   Two mock diligence calls. We play the associate who read everything. You get a written list of the questions you fumbled, with better answers.

Exit: stop after the model and you pay $5,875. It’s yours, and it already balances.

A monthly close review and a quarterly pack that opens with cash and runway, then explains itself in six pages. We present the finance section at the meeting, so the founders spend their time on decisions instead of defending a variance.

1. By the 10th

   Your bookkeeper closes the month. If they don’t, we say so — politely the first time.

2. By the 15th

   A 45-minute variance call: budget against actual, by department, with each owner explaining their own line.

3. 5 days before the board

   The draft pack lands in your inbox. One round of edits, then it goes to the directors.

4. At the meeting

   We present finance — on video by default, or in person on the East End.

Exit: tell us before a quarter ends and that quarter is the last one. The template stays with you.