Someone will look back, and then what is on the table counts

A buyer, an investor, a new shareholder. The financial picture is in the annual accounts, and that is the easy half. The other half is how the business was actually run, and that usually sits in people's heads.

Does this sound familiar?

What was agreed about this year sits in a presentation and not in a register
The answer to "how did it go" comes from three people's memories
There is no moment you can point to where something was decided, or by whom
What changed halfway through was never recorded as a change
What you will say about the past period is something you would still have to reconstruct

What we do

We record the goals and freeze them, and from then on report the position per goal every month, weighed and interpreted. Every report rests on a frozen snapshot of that moment with a check value over it. At the close of the cycle we build one file out of those: the goals with their outcome, the decisions along with who took them, and the state of the registers.

What you are left with

A reconstructable record of what was agreed, what came of it, and who decided what. Not because we write it up that way afterwards, but because every month was recorded at the time. When someone asks where a number comes from, a snapshot follows, not a recollection.

Start early, because this works forwards

We can record what happens from now on, and have you confirm at the start what the position is as you see it. What lies before that we cannot measure after the fact; that would produce an account we made up ourselves. Start a year before the transaction and you have a year. Start three months before and you have three months, which is still more than a presentation.

Is something on the agenda?

Arrange a conversation

Or is this closer to your situation?

Someone is leaving and the overview goes with them

A controller, an operations manager, someone who kept it running for years. The role can be handed over; what sat around it usually cannot, because it was never written down.

Role handover →

A board or a financier has arrived

A supervisory board, a bank with covenants, an investor with a seat, a grant body that wants to see something every quarter. From that moment on you are accounting for yourself structurally, and that is a different thing from giving the occasional presentation.

Board or financier →

Your organisation grew and your overview did not

There was a time when you knew everything because you were there for everything. Now there are managers, and you hear what they consider important enough to tell you. Usually they are right. You just hear it once it has happened, and not while it could still be steered.

Your own overview →