Services

Every big decision your business makes, from raising money to buying a company to planning next year's budget, comes down to one question: what happens to the cash? A proper financial model answers that question before you commit, not after.

Too many businesses run on spreadsheets that were never built to last: hard-coded numbers, no links between the P&L and the cash position, a “balance sheet” that doesn't actually balance. That's fine until it isn't, until an investor asks a question your spreadsheet can't answer, or a deal falls through because the numbers didn't hold up to scrutiny.

Three-Statement Models

Your financial control centre. This is the model that runs your business on paper: income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow, fully linked. Change one assumption, a price rise, a new hire, a slower-paying customer, and you instantly see the effect on your cash balance six months out.

Why you need one: because “we think we'll be fine” isn't a plan. A three-statement model gives you an early warning system for cash, a credible base for your budget, and the foundation every investor or lender will expect to see before they write a cheque.

DCF Valuations

Know what it's actually worth. Thinking about raising capital, selling up, or bringing in a partner? You need a number, and you need to be able to defend it. A discounted cash flow model turns your forecast into a valuation by working out what your future cash is worth today.

Why you need one: because valuation conversations without a model are just opinions. A well-built DCF gives you a defensible number, backed by your own numbers rather than a gut feel, and it puts you in control of the negotiation instead of reacting to someone else's figure.

Acquisition Models

Know before you buy. Buying another business is one of the highest-stakes moves you can make. An acquisition model shows you exactly what the combined business looks like: how it's funded, what it does to your earnings, and how long it takes to pay off.

Why you need one: because “the synergies will work out” has ended more deals badly than almost anything else. A proper acquisition model stress-tests the deal before you sign, so you know your downside as well as your upside.

We build in Excel, so your team can open it, own it, and run it long after we hand it over. Where the data's messy or scattered, we use Power Query to automate it. Where you want live visibility on the numbers, we build it into Power BI.

Ready to build a model you can actually rely on? Get in touch and let's talk about what you need.

Most businesses aren't working from a model someone built last week. They're working from something that's been patched, extended, and passed between three different people over the last few years, and nobody's fully sure what's underneath it anymore.

You may have an old model that needs updating. A model that was built for a business half the size it is now. Formulas that only one person understands, and they've since left. A file that takes longer to check than to trust.

Why it matters: an outdated model doesn't just give you the wrong number, it gives you false confidence in the wrong number.

Or your model just hasn't kept up with your business. You've launched a new division that's still bolted on as a rough add-on. You've added new revenue lines or cost items that don't fit the original structure. Or the numbers are right but nobody can see them clearly: no dashboard, no visuals, just a wall of cells.

Why it matters: a model that can't flex with your business gets worked around instead of relied on, and a model nobody outside finance can read doesn't get used at board level.

We appraise it before we touch it. Rather than guessing, we run your existing model through PerfectXL and the Operis Analysis Kit (OAK), industry-standard spreadsheet auditing tools that map every formula, flag inconsistencies, and expose exactly how the model is really wired.

Then we tell you: fix it, or rebuild it. Where the structure is sound and the issues are contained, a fix gets you back to a reliable model quickly and cost-effectively. Where the foundations are the problem, we'll tell you that too, and what a rebuild would involve.

Why it matters: you get a straight answer, backed by evidence, rather than a sales pitch either way. You only pay for the work the model actually needs.

If you're not fully sure what's inside your model anymore, get in touch and we'll appraise it and recommend the right path forward.

Financial models contain errors far more often than most people assume. Research by Raymond Panko, one of the most widely cited authorities on spreadsheet risk, has repeatedly found that around 88% of spreadsheets contain at least one error, and models are usually more complex, and more heavily relied upon, than the average spreadsheet.

Numbers that go into a board pack, an investment memo, or a lender's inbox don't get a second chance to be right. That's what a model review is for: an independent check on a model you've already built, so you know exactly how much to trust it before you rely on it.

High-Level Review

A high-level review is a sanity check. We look at the model's structure, logic, and key outputs to confirm it's internally consistent and flag anything that looks obviously wrong. Useful when you're on a deadline and need reassurance, not a forensic audit.

Detailed Review

A detailed review digs into the calculations themselves: do they make sense, and are there any serious errors? We test the logic behind the key numbers and check them against how the business really works. This is the level you want ahead of a fundraise, an acquisition, or anywhere a mistake would be genuinely costly.

We review models using PerfectXL and the Operis Analysis Kit (OAK), the same tools behind the biggest spreadsheet audits. This isn't a first outing for us: Will developed KPMG's Business Modelling Group (BMG) peer review methodology, and Areeba conducted model audits at Operis.

If a model's about to carry real weight in front of investors, lenders, or your board, get in touch and we'll recommend the right level of review.

We support businesses through acquisitions, disposals, and the finance leadership these situations demand, from interim CFO cover through to hands-on deal execution.

• Financial and commercial due diligence
• M&A deal structuring and execution
• Interim and turnaround CFO support
• Finance transformation
• Portfolio management and investment evaluation
• Non-executive and board-level oversight

For further information, contact Mark.

We help businesses raise the right capital in the right structure, from debt financing through to equity raises and full fundraising processes.

• Debt financing and structuring
• Equity raises and capital strategy
• Transaction execution
• Business restructuring
• Investor-grade fundraising process management
• Venture capital investment and portfolio support

For further information, contact Guy.

A model or a dataset is only useful if the people relying on it can actually see what it's telling them. Will is well versed in Power Query, Power BI, and data visualisation more broadly, with an approach shaped by Edward Tufte and Stephen Few.

We use Power BI to take the outputs of a financial model and present them as a live, interactive view rather than a static spreadsheet export. Instead of sending round an updated file every time a number changes, stakeholders get a dashboard that refreshes automatically and lets them explore the numbers themselves.

This is particularly valuable for board and investor reporting, and equally useful internally, turning a model that only the finance team can open into something the wider business can use day to day.

Work in this area typically covers dashboard design and build, data modelling within Power BI (star schemas, relationships, and DAX measures), and connecting the dashboard directly to the underlying model or data source.

Before any data can be visualised or modelled properly, it usually needs to be pulled together, cleaned, and reshaped, and that's rarely a one-off job.

Power Query is our tool of choice for building repeatable ETL (extract, transform, load) pipelines: pulling data from multiple sources, cleaning and standardising it, and loading it into a model or dashboard in a consistent, ready-to-use format.

The value here is repeatability. A one-off manual clean-up of messy data solves the problem once; a Power Query pipeline solves it every time the data refreshes, without risking a copy-paste error along the way.

Beyond Power BI specifically, we design and build dashboards and visualisations more broadly, applying the same underlying principles regardless of tool: understanding what decision the audience needs to make, choosing the visual that best supports it, and stripping out everything that doesn't earn its place on the page.

In practice that means using small multiples instead of a single overcrowded chart, choosing a bar chart over a pie chart when precise comparison matters, using colour purposefully rather than decoratively, and building KPI views that show trend and context, not just a single number in isolation.

For further information, contact Will.

Between Will and Kathrin there's over 50 years of combined experience working in Excel and VBA. Kathrin specialises in VBA, predominantly in Excel but also across other Office products. Will has been using Excel since version 1.5 and keeps up to date with new developments as they're released.

Not every problem needs a full financial model, but plenty of problems still need a proper Excel solution: a pricing calculator, a reconciliation tool, a scheduling tracker, a template that standardises how a process gets done across a team.

We build these from the ground up, designed around how the tool will actually be used day to day. That means clear, logical structure from the start; formulas and layouts that are easy for someone else to pick up and understand later; and inputs, calculations, and outputs kept clearly separated.

Where it's useful, we bring in Power Query to handle the data feeding into the tool.

Plenty of spreadsheets that are technically “working” are one wrong keystroke away from not working at all: circular references nobody can explain, formulas copied and slightly broken across a range, or a file that's simply become too slow and unwieldy to use with confidence.

A rebuild starts with understanding what the spreadsheet is actually supposed to do, then reconstructing it with a sound structure: consistent formulas, proper separation of inputs and calculations, and logic that can be followed and checked rather than taken on faith.

Where a spreadsheet's problem is less about its structure and more about how much manual effort it takes to run, VBA is usually the answer.

We use it to automate repetitive tasks, formatting, data entry, and report generation, so what used to take an hour of manual clicking happens at the press of a button, consistently and without the errors that creep in when the same steps are repeated by hand.

Because Kathrin's VBA experience extends beyond Excel into other Office products, this also covers integration work: pulling data from Outlook, generating Word documents or PowerPoint decks directly from an Excel model, or linking processes across applications so information only has to be entered once.

For further information, contact Will or Kathrin.