What a board-ready memo looks like
From ClarIQ Advisory, a family-run firm that does the monthly numbers for growing businesses.
One page. What happened, why it matters, what to do about it. If it cannot be read in the truck between jobs, it is a report, not a memo.
Free 30 minutes. Bring last month's numbers, or nothing at all.
The three sections
What happened. Results with the reason attached. Revenue, margin, and cash, each with the sentence that explains the move. Not every number the month produced, only the ones that changed the story.
Why it matters. The translation into money and time. A two-point margin slip becomes a dollar figure a month and a date when it starts to hurt. This is the section most packages skip, and it is the one owners actually read.
What to do about it. Up to three moves, in priority order, each citing the rule and the numbers that produced it. Three is a limit, not a target: a month with one clear move is a good month.
What it is not
Not a data dump, not a 30-tab export, not a deck. Every figure in the memo earns its place by changing a decision. Everything else stays in the appendix where it belongs.
Who ends up reading it
Your bank, the day you ask for room. A partner. Someday, a buyer working through diligence, who finds two years of monthly memos and starts trusting your numbers before the first meeting. And mostly you, in January, asking what actually happened this year and getting twelve pages that answer in order. If the bank is asking because the business is under strain, the memo is not the document it wants first: a turnaround-grade 13-week cash flow is, and the memo explains it.
The five-minute test
Hand this month's package to someone smart who does not work in the business. If they cannot name your three decisions inside five minutes, the package is not board-ready, however thorough it is.
Read one
Definitions are cheap, so here is the top of an actual one. This is page one of a real-format memo, in the format a client receives, and the three sections above are the three headings you can see in it.
Revenue grew 5.7 percent. Profit fell 6.5 percent. Rates took the difference.
Two cost lines, both rate rather than volume, absorbed the entire gain and more.
- Revenue
- 784.7+5.7% on May
- Gross margin
- 27.8%(1.0) pts
- Operating profit
- 93.3(6.5) on May
- Cash headroom, low week
- (29)week 9 of 13
$ thousand unless stated · unaudited
1 What happened
Revenue reached 784.7 in June, up 5.7 percent on May and the largest month Riverside has billed. Cost of delivery rose faster at 7.1 percent, so gross margin gave back a point to 27.8 percent. Operating profit closed at 93.3, down 6.5 on May.
2 Why it matters
Field labour and payroll taxes took 9.4 and subcontracted work took 4.7, against a combined 11.6 gain from volume and price. Riverside is winning more work, pricing it at January rates, and paying June rates to deliver it. At the current spread that is roughly 14.1 a month, which is more than the field hire budgeted for the third quarter.
3 What to do about it
Three decisions this month, in priority order, each naming the figure it turns on and the date after which it has been made by default. The cash decision carries a date set by the calendar rather than by preference.
Basis of preparation. Accrual basis, unaudited, prepared from the client general ledger under a read-only connection. Illustrative specimen: the numbers describe no client of ClarIQ Advisory.
All three pages, including the variance table, the weekly cash view and the full decision register, are on the sample memo page. The memo ships with every monthly close, alongside the 13-week cash forecast. If you are still deciding what level of help this even is, bookkeeping vs reporting vs a fractional CFO draws the lines.
Asked often
Do I need a board to want a board-ready memo?
No. Most of our clients have no board. The name describes the standard, not the audience: numbers explained well enough that a smart outsider could act on them. The first beneficiary is usually the owner. If you want the memo's opening question answered on your own numbers first, the free month check does it in two minutes.
Who writes it?
The person who ran the close. The memo is the close talking. At ClarIQ that is the same person you deal with directly, and every figure is checked by hand before it ships.
What does the monthly service cost?
Engagement levels are described on the reporting page, and numbers are quoted on a free 30-minute call, sized to your business.
See it on a real page, not a definition
The sample memo shows the close, the cash view, and the decision list in the exact format clients get every month. Free to read now, no email needed.
Get the sample memo Get a free callPublished July 19, 2026. Last reviewed July 26, 2026.