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Advisory
Business strategy and financial planning
A direction, not a number.
Which lines to grow and which to retire, whether the group structure still fits, and what has to be true financially for the plan to work. Written as a decision paper the board can act on.
Request a scoping call All advisoryMost strategy work fails because it produces ambition without arithmetic. A plan that does not reconcile to the ledger is a wish, and a board can tell the difference within about ten minutes.
The three questions this answers
Where does the money actually come from? Not revenue by line, but contribution after the costs that line genuinely causes. In most businesses we look at, two or three lines fund the rest and nobody has said so out loud.
Does the structure still fit? Groups accumulate entities for reasons that made sense once. Each one carries filing costs, tax exposure, related party complexity and management time. Sometimes the answer is consolidation, sometimes separation, and the tax consequences of getting it wrong are material.
What has to be true for the plan to work? The margin you need to hold, the volume you need to reach, the working capital it consumes, and the point at which you run out of cash if it goes slowly. Stated as numbers so they can be monitored rather than hoped for.
Why an accountant rather than a strategy firm
Because the constraint in a Ghanaian mid-market business is almost never the idea. It is working capital, tax exposure, structure and the quality of the information the decision rests on. Those are our subject.
The deliverable, written for a board to act on
Typical duration, phased so you can stop
Fees quoted phase by phase
Scope
What the work covers
Scoped to the decision in front of you. We would rather do one question properly than five superficially.
Performance and contribution analysis
Where profit is genuinely made, by line, contract or customer, after allocating the costs each actually causes. This step alone frequently changes the plan.
Group and entity structuring
Whether the current structure serves the business, and what a change would cost in tax, filings and disruption. Modelled before it is recommended.
Business planning and financial modelling
A model that reconciles to the ledger, with the assumptions exposed and the sensitivities shown so the board can see what actually moves the outcome.
Board paper and decision session
A short written paper and a working session with the people who have to decide. The session is the point of the engagement, not the document.
Process
How the work runs
Phased, with a deliverable at the end of each, so you can act on the first and decline the rest.
Scoping conversation
Half a day, no charge. What decision does this support, who will read it, and what would make it useless.
Before the proposalData and interviews
The ledger, the management accounts, and conversations with the people who run the operation rather than only with finance.
Weeks 1 to 2Analysis
Contribution, structure and the constraints. Findings raised as they emerge rather than saved for the report.
Weeks 2 to 5Draft and challenge
We put the draft to you and invite you to attack it. Better that the weak assumptions are found here.
Week 6Board paper and session
Short written paper, then a working session with the decision-makers.
Weeks 7 to 8Engagement
Fees, timing and who does the work
Fee basis
Fixed fee per phaseYou commit to phase one only and decide on the rest once you have seen the output.Who does the work
A partner throughoutJudgement work. The partner is in the analysis and in the room.Timeline
Four to eight weeksShorter where the question is narrow and the data is good.Questions
Questions before you commission this
How is this different from a business plan?
Will you tell us to do something we do not want to hear?
Can you help with the group restructure itself?
Do you do this for audit clients?
What if we only want the contribution analysis?
Related
Read before you brief us
Next step
Tell us the decision you are trying to make.
Half a day of scoping, no charge, and you will know whether this is work worth commissioning and roughly what it costs.
Also under Advisory
Valuation and due diligence
Business valuation for shareholder exits, investor entry, disputes and court processes. Financial and tax due diligence before you buy, invest in or lend to a business. Both built to be challenged, because both will be.
Internal control and process review
A one-off diagnostic for where the same issues keep recurring, where growth has outrun the process, or where something has already gone wrong. We map what actually happens rather than what the policy says.
IFRS implementation and conversion
First-time adoption, conversion between frameworks, or implementing a specific standard that has become material to you. Including the opening balance sheet, the disclosure pack, and training your team so it does not depend on us next year.
Insolvency and restructuring under Act 1015
An options review for a business under pressure, informal restructuring and creditor negotiation, and formal processes under the Corporate Insolvency and Restructuring Act 2020 (Act 1015). The useful time to take advice is earlier than most people take it.