Virtual FD and finance support for owners who need the answer before the decision
Virtual FD and finance support puts a finance lead inside your business for the decisions that move money: the hire, the price rise, the supplier switch, the funding application.
Most owners make those calls on instinct and learn eighteen months later whether they were right. The number that settles it is usually already sitting in your records. The open question is whether anyone reads it while you can still change your mind.
Ardein provides virtual FD and finance support to owner-managed UK businesses and grant-funded organisations, run remotely from Chester by Gavin Jardine MIAB. It sits on top of monthly bookkeeping and reporting, so hiring, pricing, funding and cash questions get an answer from live numbers. Fees are scoped to the work and capacity is capped.
“They don't feel like a contractor. They get fully involved in the business and are well respected by all.”
UK SME owner
- IAB member (MIAB 292185)
- Anti-money-laundering supervised
- Established 2021
Three things you would know before you signed
Sign off the hire with the payback in front of you
The salary, the on-costs and the cash it needs are mapped against the work already won.
Know which customers and jobs carry the margin
Revenue is cut by line rather than left as one figure at the bottom of a year-end page.
Answer a bank or funder within the week
Live records mean the figures behind the application are ready before anyone asks for them.
The decisions that cost money are made in the gap between month end and the answer
Three decisions owners describe to me, and the number that would have changed each one.
- Hire
“We took on two more people in the spring. By August I was paying them out of the VAT money.”
The work was there; the cash timing was not. Nobody had put the payroll cost against when the invoices actually land.
- Price
“I put prices up across the board because it felt safe. The customers I lost were the profitable ones.”
A flat rise punishes your best margin and protects your worst. That only shows up when revenue is split by customer and job.
- Supplier
“The cheaper supplier saved us on every invoice and cost us more in waste and rework than we saved.”
The saving was visible on the purchase ledger and the cost was buried in labour. One month of proper coding would have shown the total.
- Day 90
What it looks like when the answer is in the room
You ask on Tuesday and you have the figure on Tuesday. The hire is signed off with the payback and the cash date written down. You know which part of the business is paying for the rest, so the price conversation is specific. When a lender or funder asks for numbers, they go out the same week rather than starting a month of digging.
Quick check · no email
If you asked your accountant today whether you can afford the hire, and the honest answer is that they will know after the year end, you have the wrong accountant
Answer these three about the people who currently look after your numbers.
Question 1 of 3
Could they tell you by this afternoon whether this month’s margin supports another salary?
Could they show you which customers or jobs made the money last quarter, not last year?
Could they put the figures behind a funding or lending application together within a week?
You are making decisions on instinct and confirming them long after the money has moved. That gap is exactly what the review is built to measure.
You are in a reasonable position and one area is being carried on memory. It is usually the one where the paperwork was never finished, as the first entry below shows.
You are well served and there is little for me to add. The guides will still be useful if you want to tighten the monthly routine.
What a year-end accountant settles, and what still has nobody to answer it
Both jobs matter. They answer different questions at different speeds.
A year-end accountant
Files accounts and corporation tax correctly and on time.
Confirms what the business did once the year has closed.
Answers tax questions well, usually within a few weeks.
Is rarely asked about a hire before it happens.
A finance lead inside the business
Works from live records, so the answer is available this week.
Splits margin by customer, job or product before a price is set.
Puts the cash date on every purchase, hire and supplier switch.
Prepares the figures a lender or funder will ask for in advance.
Eight decisions, and whether your numbers are ready for them
Read them as yes or no. The noes are the work.
- 01
Can you name your most profitable customer without opening a spreadsheet?
Revenue split by customer makes this a five second answer.
- 02
Do you know the cash date of your next big purchase, not just its price?
Payback and cash timing belong on the same page.
- 03
Could you price a large contract this week with real cost data?
Job level costing turns a guess into a quote you can defend.
- 04
Do you know what your next hire costs you before they earn anything?
Salary, on-costs and the lag before the work bills are all knowable.
- 05
Can you see what you are owed and what you owe, today?
Debtor and creditor balances kept current answer most cash questions.
- 06
Would a lender’s information request be met within a week?
Clean monthly records mean the pack is mostly already written.
- 07
Do you know whether last month’s price change worked?
A price rise is a test, and tests need a result.
- 08
Does your reporting arrive on the same date every month?
A fixed date is what makes the number usable rather than historic.
What a finance lead is actually asked to settle
Three kinds of question, all of them expensive to get wrong.
Whether the business can carry another salary
The cost, the cash timing and the work already won, put together before the offer goes out.
Which work is worth having at the price you charge
Margin by customer, job or product, so price changes are aimed rather than applied across the board.
Whether the funding or lending case holds up
The figures behind an application prepared from live records, with the reasoning written down alongside them.
Entry 01
Two things found by asking where the money actually came from
Both were sitting in records that had already been signed off elsewhere.
Figures as recorded in client work · names withheld
What clients say
“They don't feel like a contractor. They get fully involved in the business and are well respected by all.”
UK SME owner
How long before a decision stops waiting on the numbers
Ninety days, with a defined point at which each kind of question becomes answerable.
You know what your records can already answer
We agree scope, complete AML checks and collect the records. If you have an accountant, the handover is managed for you.
The figures stop being an argument
Bookkeeping complete, banks reconciled, debtor and creditor balances that make sense. Cash questions get a real answer from here on.
Margin questions have somewhere to be answered
Routines and coding are set so revenue and cost split by customer, job or product rather than arriving as one number.
The answer arrives the day you ask for it
Monthly reporting lands on the agreed date, and the hire, price or purchase question is settled in an afternoon.
When this is the wrong thing to buy from me
Cash businesses are not taken on, whatever the size of the finance question.
CIS-dependent construction work sits outside what I take on.
Virtual FD input sits on top of clean monthly finance, so the bookkeeping has to come first.
If an owner cannot explain how their own business makes money, the relationship does not work.
The review tells you plainly which of these applies before either of us commits to anything.
Questions owners ask before starting
Is the Finance Function Gap Review a sales call?
No. It is a paid piece of work with a written output: a review of your bookkeeping and reporting, debtor and creditor visibility, payroll and systems, then the top five priorities and an indicative monthly structure. The fee is a fixed review fee, credited in full against onboarding if you go ahead.
We already have an accountant, so why would we need virtual FD and finance support?
Most of my clients arrive with an accountant who files correctly and on time. That work answers what happened last year. Virtual FD and finance support answers what you should do this month about a hire, a price or a supplier. The two jobs sit side by side rather than competing.
What happens with our current accountant if we move?
I deal with them. Professional clearance, records collection and a transition plan agreed around your year end are all managed by Ardein, at no separate charge. You are not asked to chase anyone or explain the change. Most handovers are agreed and underway within a few weeks of the review.
How long are we committing to?
The review comes first and stands on its own. Ongoing work is a monthly fee scoped to what the business needs, agreed once I have seen the records. If the fit is wrong, the review says so. Nobody is asked to sign up for years to find out whether this works.
What does a virtual FD do that management accounts do not?
Management accounts report the month. A finance lead uses them to settle a decision: whether the hire is affordable, which customers carry the margin, what a funding application needs. Gavin was the financial officer of a management buyout that grew into the third largest business in its industry, so the view is an operator’s.
Do you take on many virtual FD clients?
No. Capacity across the practice is capped at four new clients a month, and virtual FD work sits on top of clean monthly finance, so it is only available to a small number of clients at a time. That cap is what makes being properly inside a business possible rather than theoretical.
Three ways to take the next step
Start the Finance Function Gap Review
You get the five priorities and an indicative monthly structure, and we both know within an hour whether this is a fit.
See what you’d be told 02 · A question firstGot one decision you cannot get an answer to?
Send it to Gavin and you will get a straight reply about whether your records could settle it.
Ask Gavin a question 03 · Still decidingStill deciding
The guides set out what the first ninety days involve and what changes by day thirty, sixty and ninety.
Read the guides →