For entrepreneurs and small business owners

Most small businesses do not fail because the idea was wrong. They fail because a cash gap arrived three months before anyone saw it coming, because pricing never recovered a cost increase, or because the numbers were not good enough to raise money when money was still available.

All of that is preventable with ordinary financial discipline. This page is about what that discipline looks like in practice.

Start here — the Financial Health Checklist

Twenty minutes, seven areas, an honest score. It tells you where you actually stand before you decide what to fix.

The eleven areas we work on

1. Business planning

A plan is a set of stated assumptions you can be held to, not a document for a drawer. Drivers, sequence, and what has to be true. Business Plan Outline →

2. Budgeting

An annual operating budget built on drivers rather than last year plus ten percent, with a monthly variance review that actually happens.

3. Cash flow management

A 13-week rolling forecast is the single highest-return financial habit a small business can adopt. Profit is an opinion; cash is a fact.

4. Pricing strategy

Cost-plus, value-based and competitive pricing each answer a different question. Most owners use one method for everything and lose margin they never see.

5. Financial controls

Segregation of duties, approval thresholds, bank reconciliation discipline, a close calendar. Unglamorous, and the first thing a lender or investor tests.

6. Access to capital

SBA 7(a) and 504, working capital lines, term debt, mezzanine, equity, Opportunity Zone capital. Each suits a different situation, and using the wrong one is expensive.

7. Debt readiness

DSCR, FCCR, leverage, liquidity, personal guarantees. Know what your numbers say before a credit committee tells you.

8. Investor readiness

A data room is a stress test of your operations. Fifty points separate a “yes” from a “not yet.”

9. Growth planning

Growth consumes cash before it produces it. Working capital, hiring sequence, and the capital structure that supports the plan.

10. Turnaround support

Thirty-day stabilisation: cash triage, vendor and lender conversations, cost actions, governance. Most distress is survivable if it is addressed early and honestly.

11. Governance basics

An advisory board, a real meeting agenda, minutes, and a reporting pack. Governance is what makes a company transferable.

Take the tools

All ten are free. Go to the full library →

Or ask for a free diagnostic

Tell us where the business is and what is not working. We will read it and come back with an honest assessment. There is no charge and no obligation.

Request the free diagnostic →