The Cash X-Ray
It's stuck in inventory you don't need, invoices you're not chasing, and supplier terms you're paying too early. We read your actual ledgers - line by line, not category averages - and show you exactly where your cash is and what it's worth. In one week.
Built for inventory-heavy mid-market businesses - $15–50M revenue
The kind of business with hundreds or thousands of SKUs or customers - more than anyone can track by hand, where the average hides the answer and the cash is buried in the detail.
The bank balance looks fine, so no one looks closer. Meanwhile your own money is sitting still in four places you can't see.
We start with a one-week diagnostic, fix the specific leaks it finds, then keep your cash visible on an ongoing rhythm.
One week. We connect your finance and ERP systems and trace cash from sale to bank - finding where it's trapped and sizing each gap in pounds.
We fix the specific leaks - inventory discipline, collection priorities, supplier terms - and turn the findings into cash back in your account.
An ongoing layer that keeps cash visible: a live 13-week forecast, early-warning alerts, and a cadence that makes cash a business habit - not a fire drill.
Once you have hundreds of SKUs or customers, the cash story stops matching the P&L. These are the cuts owners almost never see - because they only show up at the line level.
High margin that flatters the P&L - and quietly suffocates cash
Low margin, unloved - and the product actually funding your business
The 200 SKUs eating your cash, three levels below the category view
Which customers are slow, by how many days, and what it costs you
The Cash X-Ray frees the quick wins. Once your data is clean and connected, the same foundation powers the deeper profit work - so every engagement compounds.
As we dig deeper, each stage is worth more →
We start by freeing the cash trapped in your operations - often enough to fund everything that follows.
Now the data is clean and connected, the same foundation exposes where profit quietly leaks.
Then we point it forward, so cash and stock stop catching you out.
Until your numbers are clean enough to put in front of a board, a lender, or a buyer.
Most data consultants can build the model but can't read the P&L. Most accountants can read the P&L but can't build the model. We do both - which is why we know where to look and how to actually go and get it.
Working with manufacturers, distributors, DTC brands, and retailers.
Finance and accounting background means we understand working capital, the cash conversion cycle, and what actually frees money - not just a tidy dashboard.
Excel chokes around a million rows. Your business has tens of millions of transaction lines once you join stock, sales, returns, and terms. We work where the cash actually is.
Not “your inventory is high.” We tell you how much cash is trapped, in which lines, and what it's worth to free it. If we can't find it, we say so.
Bias for action. A sharp answer in days beats a perfect answer delivered after the cash crunch has already happened.
I'm Lu - I started in accounting and corporate finance before moving into data science. Cash is where those two worlds meet, and it's where most businesses are quietly losing.
Owner-led companies with hundreds or thousands of SKUs or customers are sitting on cash they can't see - trapped in stock, in slow invoices, in terms paid too early. The answer is in their own ledgers. They just don't have anyone who can read the P&L and get into the data to find it.
The cheapest capital any business has is the cash it's already earned. Before you call the bank for a bigger facility, it's worth knowing how much of your own money is just sitting still. That's what I find.
Priced as an investment, not an hourly bill. If we find $200K stuck in your business, the fee pays for itself many times over.
2–3 days · fixed fee
We map what's actually in your finance and ERP systems - what's accessible, what's clean, what's missing - and scope the X-Ray precisely. Useful on its own, even if you go no further.
2–3 weeks · fixed fee
A clear findings document: where your cash is trapped, sized in pounds, ranked by impact and speed - with the specific moves to free it. Every number traced back to your own data.
What it earns into: an ongoing Cashflow Operating System retainer - a live forecast and a cadence that keeps cash visible for good.
Let's TalkNo commitment. We'll tell you honestly if we can help.
In theory, yes - and most CFOs ask exactly that. In practice, three things stop them. Bandwidth: the team is running close and board reporting, with no slack for a three-week deep-dive. Tooling: Excel chokes at SKU-level, 24-month, cross-system data - you need a real database. And the data engineering: joining ERP, billing, and inventory into one clean transaction layer is where most internal projects die. We show up, do all three, and get to an answer in weeks.
For ongoing operations, often yes - and we're not a replacement for that relationship. But when the answer lives below the averages - which 20 customers drove last quarter's margin move, including freight, returns, and the cost of slow payment - most fractional CFOs hit a tooling wall. We're the answer engine for the moments the question gets too granular for a spreadsheet.
Sometimes you do need more headroom. But borrowing to cover cash that's trapped in your own operations is the expensive way - you're paying interest to a lender for money you've already earned. We find that cash first. Often it's enough that the facility conversation changes entirely.
Most is. That's exactly why Stage 1 exists - we map what's actually usable before committing to scope. You'd be surprised: basic finance and inventory data usually has more than enough signal to find trapped cash. We work with what you have, not what you wish you had.
No. We plug into whatever you're running - Sage, NetSuite, Xero, QuickBooks, your warehouse system - and read it. We make your existing investment more valuable; we don't rip it out.
Data stays in your environment - we work via secure, read-only access, not data transfers. Happy to walk through our security posture on a call before anything is connected.
Take our 2-minute assessment and find out where your working capital is leaking - and roughly what it's costing you.
A few questions. Instant results. No sales call required.
Take the 2-min assessment →30-minute call. No pitch deck. We'll ask about your business and tell you honestly if there's cash worth going after.