Numbers tell. A narrative explains.
The board asks why margin slipped and everyone stares at a pivot table. Finance teams lose half a day every month packaging exports nobody reads, and the one question that matters still goes unanswered. We turn your closed books into a memo that answers it first.
Free 30 minutes. Read-only access. Your ledger is never touched.
Revenue grew 12% on the strength of the two contracts signed in April. Growth is real, not a billing artifact.
The number that needs attention: cost of goods grew 19%, faster than sales for the second straight month. Gross margin gave back 3 points, and the freight surcharge from your largest supplier is most of it.
Operating spend held flat, so the margin slip is a purchasing problem, not a payroll one.
Recommendation: requote freight before the Q3 volume commitment. At current growth, cash covers 8 months without it; renegotiated, closer to 10.
Illustrative close with sample figures.
What the board gets, before and after
Drag the handle. Same month, same books, different meeting.
June, in one page
Three paragraphs. What moved, why it moved, what we recommend.
- Read in 4 minutes
- Every figure traced to the ledger
- Ends with a decision, not a table
P&L_June_final_v3.xlsx
Fourteen tabs. Forty rows per tab. Zero sentences.
- Skimmed, then closed
- The why is nowhere in it
- Questions land back on you
One month, decomposed into drivers
Every memo is built on a variance decomposition like this one. Hover a driver to read it the way the memo would say it.
Sample decomposition with illustrative figures.
Close to memo in three days
Your books close
Day 1. Your bookkeeper finishes the month as usual. We pull the closed numbers through read-only access.
We decompose and draft
Day 2. Variances are traced to their drivers, the draft is written, and every figure is checked back against the ledger by a person.
The memo lands
Day 3. One page in your inbox: what moved, why, and what to do. Board-ready as it stands, with the variance table attached for anyone who wants depth.
Before you share your books
Does this replace our bookkeeper or accountant?
Which accounting systems do you work with?
Who actually writes the memo?
How safe is our financial data?
The other five watchers
Each service stands alone and each has its own page. Click any card to see what else could be watching your business.
Bring one messy month.
On a free 30-minute call we look at your latest close together and sketch, live, what its memo would say. You keep the sketch either way.
- A one-page memo within days of close
- Variance table attached for the detail readers
- Every figure human-checked against the ledger
- Read-only access, fully confidential
Prefer email? hello@clariqadvisory.com