What I do
What I do
I find out which of your sales actually made money, and which of your spending actually bought customers.
I reconcile what your ad platforms and email tool claim against what actually reached your bank, and turn that into a monthly P&L split by new and returning customers — so you know which spend is really working.
I never see a customer's name.
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Buyers or customers
Whether discount-acquired customers ever buy again at full price, and what they are worth at twelve months against full-price first orders.
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The CAC ceiling
The most a brand can afford to pay for a customer under stated assumptions, and where the last dollar of ad spend stops paying.
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The cash cost of growth
The working capital a growth rate needs when ads are paid up front and stock is bought months ahead.
- Claims against bank. Reconcile what the ad platforms and email tool claim against actual sales and bank payouts, then contribution margin after every direct cost, by channel, product, discount code and country.
- A monthly P&L. A monthly Contribution P&L, acquisition and retention side by side, reconciled to the bank, with a ledger of every finding and what it was worth.
The value ledger
Every finding is dated and written down before anything is changed: what I expect it to be worth, and on what assumption. After the change, the same line records what it was actually worth. Each one is tagged Provable, Testable or Judgement, so you can see which of my claims are arithmetic and which are opinion — and judgement never counts towards a total.
How it works
How it works
You send your own exports; I send back a P&L you can act on, every month.
- Your own exports. I work from your order export — Shopify, WooCommerce or any other store that can export its orders — your product costs and your ad spend.
- Names never leave you. You keep your customers' names: a small file runs on your own computer and replaces every email, phone number and address with a code before anything leaves you.
- A short client list. I keep the client list small, because the work is built on each brand's own data — brands with roughly USD 0.5–5 million a year in sales.
How an engagement runs
- Month one. I reconcile your last twelve months and deliver the contribution P&L and cohort view. If it isn't useful, we stop there.
- Then monthly. The same P&L each month, plus whatever question that month's numbers raise.
What I don't do
I don't manage ads, run campaigns or touch your store. I don't need logins to your ad accounts or your email tool — exports are enough. I don't sell software, and I'm not reselling someone else's dashboard. And I don't take on a brand I can't help; if the numbers say your problem is elsewhere, I'll tell you in the first week.
Why nobody has already told you this
Why nobody has already told you this
Every store already pays several people to look at its numbers. None of them is paid to check whether the numbers are true.
| Who you already pay | What they're paid to do |
|---|---|
| Your accountant | Close the books. Contribution margin by channel isn't in scope, and ecommerce mechanics aren't their trade. |
| Your agency | Run the ads. Their metrics describe their own work, and netting their claims against your bank statement is arguing against their renewal. |
| A fractional CFO | Cash, funding and board packs. Different job, different price, and they want bigger brands than yours. |
| Your dashboard tool | Display what the platforms report. It ingests the claims as fact, which reproduces the problem rather than finding it. |
The seat is empty by construction.
That's the work I do.
Start with your own numbers
Start with your own numbers
Before reading anyone else's month: whether a first order covers what it cost to win the customer, and how much of what your platforms claim actually arrived. The overlap calculator takes a minute, runs in your browser, and sends nothing anywhere.
Sample
Sample
Before you decide anything, read a month of the actual output.
One month of a monthly pack, in full: the platform reconciliation, the contribution P&L split by new and returning customers, the twelve-month cohort view, the CAC ceiling, the cash cost of growth, and three lines of the value ledger.
The three questions above — buyers or customers, the CAC ceiling, the cash cost of growth — are answered in Blocks 3, 4 and 5.
An illustrative brand. The structure and the method are exactly what you receive; the figures are constructed.
Pricing
Pricing
Priced on your revenue, stated openly, and you can leave with a month's notice.
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USD 0.5–1M a year
USD 1,200 per quarter or USD 700 per month
Your choice. On monthly light you get the pack and a written note every month, with the call once a quarter.
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USD 1–3M a year
USD 1,500 per month
The monthly Contribution P&L, the cohort view and the value ledger, with a call every month.
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USD 3–5M a year
USD 2,000 per month
Everything above, plus a 13-week cash forecast, stock planned against cash, and financing true-cost checks. This is not full CFO scope.
No setup fee, no minimum term, one month's notice either side. A small client list, so the answer is always mine and always current.
Background
Background
Fifteen years in finance, and this work began as an in-house answer to exactly this question.
Since 2012 I have run finance, procurement and supplier relations for a Dubai consumer-products company selling across Shopify, WooCommerce, marketplaces and corporate orders, with product imported from China. I work from Pakistan. My working day overlaps the European business day.
How it started, and what I don't cover
This work started there. Our CEO sat through an agency presentation of impressions and click-through rates, then came to my office and asked what any of it had actually put in the bank. I built the answer. I have been building it ever since.
Ecommerce CFO firms bundle seven functions and start around USD 3,000 a month for brands above USD 3–5 million. I do one of those functions — unit economics — fully, and cash forecasting in a light form, for brands they don't take. Not fundraising, banking, exit preparation or statutory work; your accountant keeps those.
ICAP Chartered Accountancy Intermediate (2007); B.Com.
Contact
Contact
Email is fine for a first question — you don't need to book anything.
Or book fifteen minutes to talk through your numbers.
How much of your revenue are your platforms counting twice?
Five numbers, one minute, nothing sent anywhere.