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Digital FrontiersConsulting · Finance
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Services

The finance function, without the department

Seven service areas. Any one of them can be a fixed-scope sprint; together they become the finance function of a company that is not ready to build one internally — and should not have to.

Delivery formats
Sprint · Retainer · Embedded
Typical first engagement
2–8 weeks
Led by
A named partner
Specialists
Deployed as needed
Every number
Signed by a human
What we do

Seven service areas, one accountable partner

Each area below lists what you actually receive — artefacts, not activities — and the moment that usually makes a company pick up the phone.

Service 01

Compliance

Books, filings and financial controls that meet regulatory, investor and audit-readiness standards — documented well enough to survive diligence rather than merely to close the month.

We start by finding what an auditor or an acquirer would find first, and we tell you about it in week one rather than week nine.

What you get
  • Controls documented and gaps ranked by materiality
  • Audit-readiness review with a remediation plan
  • Close calendar, checklist and owner per line
  • Filing and compliance register kept current
When you need itAn audit, a raise or a diligence request is on the calendar — or your last close took five weeks.
Service 02

Reporting

Monthly and quarterly statements, board decks and investor updates that answer the obvious questions before they are asked — and carry the reason behind each number, not just the number.

Reporting is where most finance functions stall: producing documents instead of driving decisions. We build the pack once, then keep it honest.

What you get
  • Monthly management accounts with commentary
  • A board pack that stands on its own in the room
  • Investor updates on a rhythm you can keep
  • Variance analysis with explanations attached
When you need itThe board is asking for more than you can produce, or your updates keep slipping a fortnight.
Service 03

Budgeting & Forecasting

Annual budgets, rolling forecasts and scenario planning you can actually steer by — including a 13-week cash view for the stretches where cash, not profit, is the constraint.

Every model states its assumptions in plain language and is version-controlled, so a number that changes can always be explained.

What you get
  • Driver-based operating model, documented
  • Rolling forecast with a monthly re-plan cadence
  • 13-week cash forecast when cash is tight
  • Upside, base and downside scenarios
When you need itNobody clearly owns the plan, or the plan and the ledger stopped agreeing months ago.
Service 04

Performance Analysis

KPI tracking, variance analysis, unit economics and benchmarking against companies genuinely like yours — so growth that stops making sense can be explained before it becomes a board problem.

The output is a small number of measures the leadership team agrees on, maintained consistently, rather than a dashboard nobody trusts.

What you get
  • KPI definitions agreed and written down
  • Unit economics by product, segment or cohort
  • Margin and cost-driver analysis
  • Benchmarks with the sources shown
When you need itRevenue is moving but margin is not, or two teams quote two different numbers for the same thing.
Service 05

AI-Powered Dashboards

Real-time dashboards that turn data scattered across five tools into decision-ready visuals. This is a deliverable we hand over and maintain — not a demo, and not a platform you are then locked into.

Ask it a question in plain English; it answers from your governed data, and every figure keeps its trail back to the source entry.

What you get
  • Connected data from ledger, bank, billing and payroll
  • Board, management and operator views
  • Natural-language querying over your own numbers
  • Anomaly alerts that reach a human, not a log file
When you need itAnswering a simple question takes three people and a spreadsheet export.
Service 06

Strategic Advisory

Fractional-CFO counsel on runway, pricing, fundraising readiness, and the operating decisions each of those depends on — from people who have made these calls with their own name attached.

We will tell you when the answer is uncomfortable. That is most of the value.

What you get
  • Runway and hiring-plan pressure testing
  • Fundraise readiness and diligence preparation
  • Pricing and margin strategy work
  • A partner on call between board meetings
When you need itA decision is yours to make and you want someone who has lived with the consequences of that call.
Service 07

AI Enablement & Governance

The tooling we use ourselves, implemented inside your business — with the controls, documentation and audit trail a board, an investor or an auditor will accept.

Most finance teams already have AI somewhere in the building, usually unsupervised. We make that fact defensible: what it may touch, who reviews it, and how any number it produced can be traced.

What you get
  • An inventory of AI already in use in finance
  • A written AI use and review policy
  • Model versioning and assumption documentation
  • Automation of the mechanical layer, with sign-off gates
When you need itSomeone on the board, or in the audit, has started asking what your AI actually does.
The deliverable

What “AI-powered” looks like when it is real

No robots, no glowing brains. An AI-powered dashboard is a governed data pipeline with a legible face on it: numbers that refresh on their own, exceptions that raise their hand, and a provenance trail sitting underneath every tile.

The version on the right is illustrative — the shape of what a client sees in month one. Yours is built on your own chart of accounts, with the measures your board actually argues about.

✓
Refreshed nightly, reconciled firstAnomalies flagged before the number reaches anyone’s screen.
✓
Every tile traceableClick a figure, see the assumption, the model version and the source entry.
✓
Yours to keepBuilt on your stack, documented, handed over. No hostage data.
Operating dashboard · illustrativeLive
Cash
$4.2M
↑ 8.1% MoM
Runway
17 mo
↑ 2 mo
Gross margin
68.4%
↓ 90 bps
Burn multiple
1.4×
↑ improving
Revenue vs. plan · 12 monthsActual · Plan
Source: general ledger · reconciled 06:14Model v14 · signed

Illustrative figures — not client data.

Formats

Three ways to buy the same seniority

Most relationships start with a sprint — a defined problem, a defined end — and become a retainer once the value is obvious and the trust is earned. That order suits both sides.

Sprint

A defined problem, fixed and finished

Two to eight weeks, one deliverable: a fundraise-ready model, an audit-readiness review, a dashboard build, a close-process rebuild. Priced in writing before we start.

$5,000–$25,000
Retainer

Your finance function, led

Ten to twenty hours a month: reporting, budgeting, board materials, dashboard upkeep, and a partner who knows your business well enough to raise things you did not ask about.

$3,500–$7,500 / month
Embedded

In the business, most weeks

Twenty to forty-plus hours a month for multi-entity structures, live fundraises and portfolio-company transitions, with full advisory access between meetings.

$7,500–$15,000+ / month
Full pricing and what is included →
Next step

Start with the thing that is hurting

Tell us which of the seven is the problem this quarter. Thirty minutes with a partner is usually enough to scope it — or to tell you it is not worth doing yet.

Talk to a partner →