The same structure that commands a premium at exit also stops you bleeding margin today. And it's what lets you take three weeks off without your phone buzzing.
Finance-Ready shows you where you stand across all three.
The Problem Nobody Talks About
Most FDs prepare for due diligence by tidying spreadsheets and reconciling accounts. Necessary. But it misses the actual question buyers ask: can this finance function operate without the person running it?
That question matters whether you're selling or not.
If you're exit-focused: Buyers don't verify your numbers add up. They assume their accountants will catch errors. What they assess is structural risk. Key-person dependency. Control gaps where surprises hide. Documentation that only makes sense to you. Every gap they find can become negotiation leverage, or a discount baked into the offer.
If you're staying: Those same gaps cost you money right now. A finance function that depends on one person creates bottlenecks. Reporting lag means you're steering with stale data. Missing controls let errors compound until month-end. A tight finance function shows you margin by product line, cash by week not month, and variances before they become surprises. You're either paying for dysfunction or profiting from clarity.
If you want your time back: This is why your phone rings on holiday. Why Tuesdays don't look like Saturdays. The business can't produce reliable numbers without you in the room, and that's a structural problem, not a capacity one.
What Actually Gets Checked
Whether it's a buyer's DD team, a board review, or your own honest audit, the same five areas attract scrutiny:
Single-point-of-failure risk. Can your function produce accurate numbers if you're unavailable for three weeks? If the answer involves "they'd call me" or "I'd check in remotely," that's a flag.
Control gaps. Where can errors or fraud hide without anyone noticing? Every gap is where problems compound until they surface at the worst moment.
Reporting lag. How stale is your view of cash, margin, and pipeline? If your board pack reflects last month, you're making decisions on delayed signal.
Documentation gaps. Could someone outside rebuild the financial picture from your records? Or does critical context live in your head?
Forecasting credibility. How often do your projections land within 10% of actuals? Forecast accuracy is a proxy for management quality. It's the difference between steering and guessing.
These questions determine whether your finance function drives decisions or drags on them. They're also exactly what buyers assess during DD.
What Finance-Ready Shows You
Finance-Ready scores your function across eight pillars that determine operational quality and exit readiness. It shows you where you're exposed, where you're strong, and which fixes have the most impact.
The eight pillars: Controls, Reporting, Cash, Compliance, Team, Systems, Forecasting, Documentation.
How it works:
- 30 practical questions about how your finance function actually operates (8–10 minutes)
- Instant Finance-Ready Score (0-100) benchmarked against what high-performing finance functions deliver
- Pillar breakdown showing your strongest and weakest areas
- Vulnerability flags with severity ratings: the issues that cost you money, surfaced before anyone else finds them
- Priority actions specific to your profile, not a generic improvement list
What You Get
Baseline report: Your Finance-Ready Score, pillar breakdown, vulnerability flags, and 7-day quick wins you can action immediately. Enough to know where you stand, which areas need attention, and what to fix first. You'll see what's exposed and what's working.
Full Roadmap: Everything in Baseline, plus complete vulnerability narratives explaining why each issue matters, a 90-day priority sequence showing which fixes to tackle first, and "What Boards and Buyers Will See": the external view of your finance function you don't get from inside.
Expert Review: 1:1 session to prioritise your roadmap, pressure-test assumptions, and build an implementation timeline. By application.
Who This Is For
Finance-Ready is built for Finance Directors, CFOs, and owner-managers at £2-20M businesses.
This is for you if:
- You want to know what a buyer would find before they find it
- You suspect your finance function has hidden costs you can't quite quantify
- You'd like to take a proper holiday without checking email
- You're building enterprise value, not just closing month-end
- You want finance to inform decisions, not just record them
- You'd rather fix structural issues on your timeline than negotiate around them
Whether you're 18 months from a transaction or have no exit plans at all: the same fixes that impress buyers also add margin and give you your time back.
Run the Assessment
8–10 minutes. No preparation required.