Anchor case study
$10M
Enterprise Value
100+
Projects Delivered
14+
Countries
The engagement
A project-based consulting/design firm scaling across a dozen-plus countries needed monthly clarity a bookkeeper couldn't deliver — and cash visibility a full-time finance hire couldn't yet justify.
DCG stepped in as the fractional finance partner: building reporting, cash forecasting, and job-level profitability tracking the business could actually run on.
Where things stood
The books closed, eventually. But the close landed weeks after the month it described, and by the time anyone read it the decisions it should have informed had already been made on instinct.
Revenue was project-based and lumpy. Work was quoted, delivered, and invoiced across more than a dozen countries, on staggered timelines, in a mix of currencies. The P&L showed a company-level result and nothing underneath it — no way to tell which projects carried the business and which ones quietly ate the margin the good ones earned.
Cash was the sharper problem. A healthy-looking month on paper could sit next to a tight week in the bank, because collections and delivery ran on different clocks. Leadership was checking the balance and inferring the rest.
The firm had outgrown its bookkeeper and wasn't ready to carry a full-time finance hire. What it needed was someone who would own the numbers, not just record them.
What got built
01
A disciplined close on a fixed calendar, delivered as a package built to be read by an operator — P&L, balance sheet, and cash, with the commentary that explains what moved and why. Same format every month, so trends are visible instead of re-derived.
02
Revenue and cost tracked to the individual project rather than the company total, so gross margin can be read per engagement. Pricing, scoping, and staffing decisions stopped being guesses about which work is actually worth taking.
03
A rolling forward view of cash driven by real collection timing and committed spend, not last month's average. Tight weeks became something the firm saw coming rather than discovered.
04
Chart of accounts rebuilt so work across a dozen-plus countries rolls up consistently, and the same expense means the same thing wherever it was booked. Consolidation became a step in the close instead of a project of its own.
05
Invoicing tied to delivery milestones, payables sequenced against the forecast, and follow-up on receivables handled on a schedule instead of when someone remembered.
06
A recurring working session on the numbers, plus availability between them. Pricing questions, hiring timing, and go/no-go calls get a finance read before the decision, not a reconciliation after it.
What the business runs on now
Reporting arrives on a predictable schedule, close enough to the period to still be actionable.
Project margin is visible at the job level, so scoping and pricing conversations start from evidence.
Cash is forecast rather than observed — the firm knows the shape of the next quarter before it arrives.
Leadership has one person accountable for the numbers, and gets time back that used to go to chasing them.
Read more
Coming soon
Additional engagements are published as clients approve them.
Coming soon
Additional engagements are published as clients approve them.