Financial and Operational Analysis
What your numbers say about how the business actually runs. Where margin is made and lost, which activities drive the cost, and which of your reports anybody acts on.
A number is the outcome of a process. It is never the cause of anything.
When a cost line moves the wrong way, the response is usually to discuss the cost line. But the cost is a result. Behind it sits rework, a manual reconciliation somebody built in 2019, an approval step that protects against a risk that no longer exists, or a handoff where files wait three days for no reason anyone can name.
We are not your accountants and have no interest in being. They tell you what the numbers are. We work on what they are telling you, and then on the steps producing them.
What We Look At
- Margin by line of business, service or customer type, which frequently differs sharply from where everyone assumes the money is made
- What actually drives cost at an activity level, rather than at the level the chart of accounts happens to be organized around
- Reporting that measures something other than what people believe it measures, which is more common than it sounds
- Which reported measures anybody has ever acted on, and quietly retiring the ones nobody has
- The cost of rework, manual reconciliation and avoidable approval steps, which rarely appears as a line anywhere
- A short written account of what the numbers indicate and which process is worth examining first
Common Questions
Are you accountants?
No, and we would not pretend otherwise. Your accountant tells you what the numbers are and whether they are correct. We work on what the numbers are telling you about how the business runs, which is a different question and usually an unanswered one.
What does an operational analysis cover?
Where margin is actually being made and lost by line of business, what specific activities drive cost, which of your reported measures anyone acts on, and where the reporting is measuring something other than what people believe it measures.
How does this connect to process work?
A number is the outcome of a process. When a cost line moves in the wrong direction, the cause is almost always a step: rework, a manual reconciliation, an approval nobody needed, a handoff that stalls. Financial analysis finds the symptom and process mapping finds the cause.
Can you do this without a full process engagement?
Yes. A review on its own is a reasonable starting point, and it frequently identifies which process is worth mapping first, which makes the larger engagement cheaper and better targeted.
Which number bothers you most?
Tell us which one moved in the wrong direction and we will tell you where we would look first.