Ninety days from now, the decision you keep putting off takes an afternoon, because the numbers finally agree.
Owners and chief executives who can answer from live numbers sign the purchase, or refuse it, the same week. The ones whose systems disagree wait for the year end and find out afterwards. Ardein sets up who does what, when, and how information flows, then runs it.
Three things you’d know before you signed anything
Sign off the purchase with the payback in front of you
One set of records, reconciled monthly, so the cash position is current on the day you ask.
Answer a funder or a board within the same week
Awards and restricted money sit in a register that is updated monthly and reviewed at each meeting.
Know which job, customer or contract carries the margin
Sales, costs and payroll coded one consistent way, so performance splits the way the organisation actually works.
Three decisions that went wrong because two systems disagreed
In each case the number existed somewhere. It was in the wrong place, or it was three months old.
- Purchase
“We bought the second van on the strength of a bank balance that still had three months of supplier bills to come out of it.”
The van was affordable on paper and painful in practice. Purchase invoices sat unposted, so the balance on screen was never the balance owed.
- Funder
“The funder asked how much of the award was left. It took us two weeks, and our answer did not match theirs.”
The claim went in late and the next application was weaker for it. The funding spreadsheet had never been reconciled to the accounting records.
- Hire
“We hired because the job system said we were busy. The accounts, three months later, said those jobs barely covered themselves.”
A salary went on before anyone knew the margin. Job costs lived in one system and supplier costs in another, and nobody joined them up.
- Day 90
What it looks like when the answer is in the room
You ask what a contract is worth and get a figure the same day. The debtor balance is the same number in every place you look. The board pack arrives before the meeting, not after it. When a funder or a lender asks a question, the evidence is already assembled.
Two ways to run the same finance function, and only one of them answers on the day
A year-end accountant does a real job well. It is just a different job from the one a decision needs.
Systems that do not agree with each other
The bank feed, the sales system and the spreadsheet each give a different figure.
Responsibility is assumed rather than agreed, so bills and invoices wait for someone to notice.
Documents live in inboxes, so evidence is rebuilt from memory when it is asked for.
The true picture appears at year end, months after the purchase was made.
One finance function, one set of records
One place where balances are decided, with everything else reconciled back to it.
A written map of who does what and by when, agreed in month one.
Bills, receipts and award paperwork captured as they arrive, ready to be produced.
Monthly figures on the agreed date, while the decision is still open.
Eight questions about decisions, and what a no is quietly costing
Read them as yes or no. The pattern of the nos tells you which system is the problem.
- 01
Could you say today what you are owed, and how much of it is overdue?
If the sales ledger and the bank are reconciled weekly, this takes a minute.
- 02
Could you decide a purchase this week with the cash position in front of you?
Unposted supplier bills are what make a healthy bank balance misleading.
- 03
Do you know which customer, job or contract made the money last month?
That needs consistent coding, agreed once and applied every month.
- 04
Could you evidence where a specific award or grant was spent, line by line?
A funding register updated monthly answers this without a search through inboxes.
- 05
Does one person clearly own invoicing, and another own approving bills?
Where responsibility is assumed, both jobs slip and nobody notices until month end.
- 06
Do your sales system, bank and accounts agree at the end of each month?
If they do not, every report built on top of them inherits the difference.
- 07
Could you price a rise or a tender without guessing your cost base?
Payroll, overheads and direct costs have to be split the way the work is actually done.
- 08
Do management or board figures arrive before the meeting, on the same date each month?
Figures that arrive afterwards get filed rather than used.
Ask your accountant three questions this week, about the systems you already pay for and the numbers they produce. If the answers take longer than the decision, you have the wrong accountant.
- 01Could they tell you today which system holds the correct customer balance, and why the other one disagrees?
- 02Could they say who raises invoices, who approves bills and who chases payment, without asking you first?
- 03Could they produce last month’s figures, reconciled, before your next board or management meeting?
Three yeses and you’re fine. Anything else is what the review is for.
Entry 01
What ninety days is meant to produce, and how you will know if it hasn’t
Onboarding is defined rather than open-ended, so you can hold the work to a date.
Figures as recorded in client work · names withheld
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What changes between day one and day ninety, and what you can decide at the end of it
Four stages. Each one ends with something you can do that you could not do before.
Everything is in one place, including what someone else holds
We agree scope, complete due diligence and AML checks, and collect the records. If another accountant or bookkeeper holds them, we deal with that at no separate charge.
You can quote a balance without checking two systems
Bookkeeping is brought up to date, banks are reconciled and customer and supplier balances are made to agree. We also write down who is responsible for each part of the process.
Nobody has to ask who is doing what this week
Invoicing, supplier bills, credit control, payroll and document handling run to a routine, with checks in the right places and duplicate entry removed where it is practical.
The purchase, the hire or the claim is decided while it matters
Monthly management information arrives on the agreed date: cash, debtors, creditors, performance and, where it applies, award and restricted fund positions.
What we set up, and who ends up doing what afterwards
Three pieces of work, all aimed at shortening the time between a question and its answer.
One place where the numbers are decided
We review what you already run, keep what works, and reconcile the rest back to a single set of records. Xero conversion and a chart of accounts rebuilt around how you actually make money, where that is the right move.
Checks that catch the error before you act on it
Approval of supplier bills, credit control routines, payroll cut-offs and month-end reconciliations, each with an owner and a date. Controls sized to the organisation, not to a manual.
Documents that are already there when someone asks
Receipts, invoices, contracts and award paperwork captured as they arrive and attached to the transaction, so evidence for a funder, a lender or an auditor is assembled rather than reconstructed.
Where this does not work, and it is better to say so now
We do not take on cash businesses, and we do not work on CIS-dependent construction.
We walk away from anything illegal or reportable, including falsified VAT records, and from clients who will not complete AML checks.
If an owner cannot explain their own business or say what they need, the relationship does not work.
Capacity is four new clients a month, so the start date is sometimes the constraint rather than the work.
If none of that rules you out, the review is where we find out what your systems are actually doing.
What people ask before they decide whether this is worth an hour
Is the review a sales call?
No. It is a working session on your records, your systems and your reporting, carried for a fixed review fee, credited in full against onboarding. You leave with the top five priorities whether or not you go further.
We already have an accountant. Does this replace them?
Not necessarily. Many owners have an accountant for the year end and no month-by-month support. We can run the whole finance function, or set the systems up and hand them back.
What happens with our current accountant or bookkeeper?
We manage the handover: professional clearance, records collection and a transition plan agreed around your year end. There is no separate charge for it.
What are we committing to?
A monthly fee scoped to the work and agreed after we have seen the records and understood how the business runs. Nothing is priced before then.
Does this work for a CIC or charity with several funding streams?
Yes. Fund tracking, a funding register and a monthly evidence and board pack are part of the same setup, scoped on the number of funding streams and your reporting cadence.
Your next decision is due. Will the number be in the room?
Start with the review. You will see which of your systems is producing the wrong figure, what it has been costing in decisions, and what the first ninety days would change.