A fixed fee to fix what the review found.
No two files break the same way, so no two Sprints are the same. The review names the problems with evidence and dollars attached. The Sprint fixes them for a fixed fee, agreed on the findings call before any work begins. Typical duration two to eight weeks depending on scope. Everything built is handed over and owned by you.
Scoped to your file, drawn from this menu.
Whatever else the findings named, priced in or explicitly out.
What you will know that you do not know today.
An interactive example of the pack a full-scope Sprint hands over. Illustrative numbers. Client data is never used for marketing.
What you receive.
A full-scope Sprint delivers the complete pack below. Narrower findings get narrower scopes and smaller fees.
Executive read
KPI dashboard, reviewed commentary, decisions pack, risk register. The owner’s monthly briefing.
Profit
Monthly P&L with budget variance, profit and margin visibility by client, project, or service line, and an operational KPI scorecard.
Cash
A 13-week cash forecast with inflows, outflows, and known cash events laid out week by week. See the squeeze before it hits.
Forecast
Integrated three-way 12-month forecast (P&L, cash flow, balance sheet) with Base, Upside, and Downside scenarios.
Working model
Built in Excel or Google Sheets. Drivers and assumptions visible. Yours to keep. No SaaS lock-in.
Delivery call
A walk-through so you understand the model, not just receive it.
When this is the right call.
Built for owner-operated businesses from $1M revenue. Service, project, people-heavy, or B2B operating businesses where cash and profit depend on clients, jobs, teams, suppliers, or delivery capacity.
- /You need ongoing bookkeeping, not a finance function
- /You need tax, audit, or legal advice
- /You have no usable accounting or operating data
- /You already have a 13-week cash forecast and margin view you trust
How the Sprint runs.
Five stages, fixed scope, fixed price. Timeline set with the fee on the findings call. Most Sprints run two to eight weeks depending on scope.
Findings call
The review is walked through. Scope, fixed fee and timeline are agreed on that same call.
Acceptance
Engagement letter and the first half of the fee. Work starts the next business day.
Build
Cash, profit and margin model from the file already reviewed. No re-collection of data.
Draft review
Risks, assumptions and decisions walked through with you before anything is final.
Handover
Owner pack, model handed over, delivery call. Second half of the fee after that call.
What the Sprint works from.
Everything below was read during the free review. Nothing new to gather. Where something was missing, the scope said so before you paid.
Numbers that reconcile and can drive real decisions.
Useful for direction, not safe for large decisions.
Gaps that need filling before certain questions can be answered.
Looks real, but cannot support hiring, pricing, cash, or growth decisions.
- Access is scoped to the agreed work. Where the scope includes changes to your ledger, that access is agreed in writing and revoked on handover, with a change log in the pack.
- AI-assisted analysis is reviewed by a finance professional before delivery. Confidentiality terms are in the engagement note.
- NDA available on request. Final outputs are delivered only to the agreed contacts.
What this is, and what it is not.
One fixed fee against the market’s monthly meter.
The retainer firms charge $3,000 to $15,000 a month, open-ended, whether or not anything gets finished. A Sprint is one fixed fee for a defined fix, quoted after your file has actually been read, with the model owned by you at the end.
- Open-ended scope
- No refund
- No deliverable you own
- Two to eight weeks
- Refundable · 7 day window
- Working model yours to keep
Built and reviewed by Liam Collier.
Liam started in business advisory at BDO New Zealand, working with owner-operated and mid-market businesses up to roughly NZ$100M in revenue. The work focused on advisory, forecasting, reporting, and helping owners understand the numbers behind decisions.
He then ran the finance function inside a 130-person Melbourne law firm, working across cash visibility, management reporting, profitability analysis, and owner decision support. Since then he has worked directly with his own clients, giving him advisory-side, operator-side, and founder-side exposure to the same gap the Finance Review is built to find and the Sprint to fix.
“Liam rebuilt our budget from the bottom up and restructured the ledger so we could actually see delivery margins and where payroll was really going… The reporting was genuinely useful: true cash position after obligations, utilisation by consultant, and straight commentary on what needed a decision each month. Always delivered on time, no fuss, and having clean numbers made life easier when the business changed hands.”
Honest answers.
Q01 Is this replacing our accountant?
No. Your accountant handles compliance, tax, and historical reporting. The Control Sprint is operating control: cash, profit, margin, risk, and decision clarity.
Q02 Who actually does the work?
The Sprint is founder-led. Liam reviews the work before delivery and leads the delivery call. Analyst support may be used for data preparation and modelling, but findings, interpretation, and recommendations are not outsourced.
Q03 Why not just build this ourselves, or with AI?
If someone internally has the time, skill, and objectivity to turn scattered data into a usable control model quickly, you may not need this. AI can draft a model too. The risk in both cases is the same: whether it is built from the right data, whether the assumptions are safe, whether the outputs reconcile, and whether the conclusions will hold when you stake a hire on them. The Sprint exists to get it done and to take accountability for what the numbers mean.
Q04 Do we need clean accounting data?
No. The review already showed which numbers can be trusted, which are directional, and which cannot support a decision. The Sprint scope was written from that, so nothing about the data is a surprise after acceptance.
Q05 How much time will this take from us?
Usually 2 to 5 hours across the entire Sprint: the review calls, clarification questions, and the delivery call. The build work happens on our side.
Q06 How long does a Sprint take?
Timeline set with the fee on the findings call. Most Sprints run two to eight weeks depending on scope. The scope is deliberately narrow: we are not rebuilding your finance function, we are fixing what the review named, so the work is bounded before it starts.
Q07 How is this different from a fractional CFO?
A fractional CFO is an ongoing relationship, typically $3,000 to $15,000 a month with open-ended scope. The Control Sprint is a one-time fixed-fee deliverable, refundable, with the model owned by you. If you want ongoing finance support after the Sprint, that is a separate conversation. If you want a defined piece of work with a clear exit, the Sprint is the right shape.
Stop making expensive decisions from numbers you do not trust.
The review is free, the findings are yours in writing, and nothing follows unless the file shows work worth paying for. Twenty minutes to start.
Read-only access you can revoke any time. It is me on the call, nobody else.