Client stories

Voices from recent engagements

They rebuilt our weekly cash list around supplier terms we already had — I still wish the first session had started earlier in the morning, but the forecast finally matches what leaves the account on Fridays.

— Mara T., café owner, Ponsonby · Cash Flow Stewardship

We stopped guessing owner drawings after the pay structure session. The GST buffer used to vanish; now it sits in a separate transfer every month.

— Eli R., joinery workshop, West Auckland · Owner Pay Structure

The margin brief was blunt about our underpriced install days. We raised two packages and kept one loss-leader for lead generation — revenue felt quieter for a fortnight, then the bank balance stopped dipping mid-month.

— Samira K., interior studio, Wellington · Profit Margin Review

Forecast session helped us decide against a second van until deposits covered the lease. Not glamorous advice, but it spared a winter of tight Fridays.

— Noah P., landscaping crew, Hamilton · Forecast & Scenario Planning

Extended story: hospitality cash map

A two-site hospitality group came to us after three GST quarters that felt like ambushes. Bookkeeping was current, yet the owners still transferred emergency cash from a personal account every few weeks.

We mapped supplier payment days against expected card settlements, then moved two large dry-goods invoices to a later cycle the supplier already offered. A standing Wednesday cash review replaced ad-hoc Sunday night spreadsheet panic. After one quarter on Cash Flow Stewardship, emergency personal transfers stopped. The owners still describe the first fortnight as “uncomfortable honesty,” which is fair — the map showed labour overtime that nobody wanted to see in daylight.

Extended story: trade deposits

A North Shore electrical firm booked a Quarterly Business Health Check before hiring. Receivables looked healthy on paper, but deposits on larger jobs sat in the operating account and were spent before materials arrived. We ring-fenced deposit funds and set a simple job-cost checklist for apprentices to complete before ordering. The hire went ahead two months later, funded from actual surplus rather than optimism.