No. It is a paid review at a fixed review fee, credited in full against onboarding, and it runs for about an hour. We look at the records across your entities, the reporting you get now, debtors and creditors, payroll and the systems in use, then set out the top five priorities. You can act on those with us or without us.

Most of our clients already had one. The common gap is monthly: the accounts are filed accurately and nothing useful arrives between year ends. Ardein runs the whole finance function, so the annual filing and the monthly view across entities come from the same records. Whether that is worth doing for your portfolio is what the review decides.

We manage the handover and there is no separate charge for it. We write for professional clearance, collect records and working papers for every company, agree who is responsible for what from which date, and set a transition plan around your year ends. You tell your current accountant the decision, and we deal with the rest.

Engagements run monthly, with a fee scoped to the work once we have seen the records and understood how the portfolio runs. There is no long tie in. We would rather you stayed because the reporting arrives on the agreed date each month and you use it, than because of a contract term.

Yes. Multiple entities are the usual position: a holding company, several SPVs, sometimes personally held property alongside a trading business. We report each company on its own and the portfolio together, so intercompany balances, debt service and cash are visible in one place instead of being reconstructed at year end.

Yes. Ardein works remotely across the UK from Chester, with a North West core in Liverpool, Manchester, Warrington and Cheshire. Records, bank feeds and reporting run in Xero, and Gavin is reachable by phone or email Monday to Friday. Where your properties sit does not limit who we can look after.