Audit and Review Readiness
Assess whether your trial balance, reconciliations, schedules, contracts, controls, and prepared-by-client package are ready for external accountants.
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For owners, founders, and finance leaders
Finance Function and Systems Scaling
Determine whether people, processes, systems, reporting, and controls are keeping pace with growth and complexity.
6 guided steps
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Official guidance links
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Your free guided checker
Answer a few quick questions below. It is private - nothing is submitted or stored - and takes about a minute.
Informational business diagnostic only; not accounting, audit, tax, legal, investment, lending, or valuation advice.
The questions this tool walks you through
Here is what the checker asks and why each step matters. Prefer to talk it through? Contact us and we will help directly.
Do the active owners or leaders need forward-looking numbers - a budget, cash-flow forecast, or scenario model - to run the business, beyond the historical bookkeeping you already get?
Bookkeeping tells you what happened; FP&A tells you what is about to happen - the two are different skills and usually different people.
Use the interactive tool above to see how this applies to your situation.
Official guidance: SBA guidance for managing finances
Do outside parties - equity investors, a bank or lender under covenants, a board, or an acquirer in diligence - require timely financials from you on a set schedule?
External reporting obligations raise the bar from useful to defensible, and usually justify a senior finance hire rather than more bookkeeping.
Add FP&A capability - budgeting, forecasting, and scenario modeling - without a full-time hire yet.
Official guidance: SBA guidance for managing finances
Does the monthly close take more than ten business days, or do you routinely rework the numbers after they are first reported?
A close that slips past roughly ten business days, or that gets restated, usually points to broken process and systems rather than a missing person - commonly cited, confirm against your own calendar.
Use the interactive tool above to see how this applies to your situation.
Official guidance: SBA guidance for managing finances
Do you already employ a controller or finance leader - someone who owns the close, the numbers, and the controls - as opposed to a bookkeeper or an outside accountant only?
External reporting and covenants need a named person who can stand behind the financials; a bookkeeper records transactions but does not own accounting judgment.
Add a fractional or full-time CFO for strategic finance, capital, and board-grade reporting. Hire a controller to own the close, the numbers, and the controls.
Official guidance: SBA guidance for managing finances
Do you process a high and rising volume of transactions - hundreds or more invoices, bills, or payments a month - much of it still keyed, copied, or reconciled by hand in spreadsheets?
High volume plus manual handling is where systems pay for themselves; the fix is automation and integration, not simply adding headcount to a broken process.
Implement and integrate systems to remove the manual work driving the slow close. Hire a controller to own the close, the numbers, and the controls.
Official guidance: SBA guidance for managing finances
Is your entire finance function effectively one person - or a part-time bookkeeper - so that a single absence or resignation would stall the close, payroll, or payments?
A one-deep finance function is a key-person risk; outsourcing to a firm buys continuity, a full skill stack, and internal controls you cannot build with one hire.
Outsource the finance function to a firm for continuity, controls, and a full skill stack. Add FP&A capability - budgeting, forecasting, and scenario modeling - without a full-time hire yet.
Official guidance: SBA guidance for managing finances
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