Where Are You At
Where your business actually stands, and what to do next
Most owners get a year end about something that happened five months ago, then make this year's decisions on instinct. Where Are You At is the short review that closes that gap. £3,000, under a mutual NDA, with read only sight of your numbers.
Does any of this sound familiar
The management accounts, if they come at all, land weeks after the month has already gone. Big decisions get made on instinct, because the numbers are never ready when you need them. The whole finance function rests on one person, and you would be badly exposed if they left. The business is busy, possibly growing, and you are still not certain the profit and the cash are really there.
If that lands, you are not behind. It is a planning gap, and closing it is the job. Most owners have simply never had finance work for them the way it works inside a large company.
What the review tells you
Whether your numbers are solid, trustworthy, and arrive in time to be useful. How far your decisions are backed by real data rather than instinct. How resilient the business is, meaning cash, controls, and what rests on one person. Whether finance helps the business run or only records what already happened. Where the routine work could come off your team so they can spend their time thinking. And where you want to take the business, with an honest measure of the gap from here.
Six lenses, looked at together
Financial footings. Are the numbers solid, trustworthy and timely. Can the business stand on them and build.
Data and decisions. What is actually in front of you when you decide, and how much of the decision is evidence.
Resilience. Cash, lock up, key person risk and controls. Can the business take a knock and keep going.
Finance and operations. Does finance help the business run better, or only record what already happened.
Systems and tools. Where the right tools, used well and safely, lift the routine off your team.
Direction and goals. Where you want to take the business, and the honest size of the gap from here.
Looking at them separately is what produces a report nobody acts on. The value is in the crossover, because a cash problem is usually a systems problem wearing a disguise.
Where your finance function sits today
| Stage | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| ManualOn feel | Decisions made on instinct and the bank balance. The records catch up later. |
| RecordingBooks kept | The bookkeeping is done and the year end gets filed. Nothing looks forward. |
| ReportingYou can see | Management accounts arrive, and they are accurate. Nobody says what they mean. |
| InsightLooking ahead | The numbers explain themselves and point at a decision. Cash is forecast, not discovered. |
| StrategicThe engine | Finance shapes where the business goes rather than reporting where it has been. |
Most small businesses sit at the first or second stage and have never been shown it clearly. Seeing the curve, and your place on it, is part of the value. Knowing the next stage up is the start of the plan.
How it works
A conversation. A short, honest interview about where the business is now and where you want it to go.
We build the picture. We look at your numbers, systems, reporting and team, and score where you stand across the six lenses.
We fix a few things. Practical improvements made while we are there, so you feel the value before the report arrives.
Your roadmap. A clear plan to where you want to be, with the first moves marked and sequenced.
All under a mutual NDA, with read only sight of your numbers. No disruption, and no obligation to do anything further.
Who it is for
Owner managed businesses turning over £500k to £5m, in any sector, that want to grow, adapt or change. Businesses that have grown faster than their finance function, and businesses that know they need to move and want the numbers behind them.
AI Finance Partners is led by Andrew Isaacs, a CIMA Member in Practice and Practising Certificate Holder, who came to finance through the operation rather than the other way round. He built the business partnering function inside BT and Openreach, then ran finance inside a professional firm. That is corporate grade partnering, brought down to earth for a business your size.
Start smaller if you would rather
The two minute self assessment runs in your browser, sends nothing anywhere, and shows you roughly where you sit on the curve. The Outside View is a free written read of the business built only from public sources, back with you inside five working days.
Common questions
What is the Where Are You At review? It is a finance led review of a whole business, run by AI Finance Partners over a matter of days. We interview you about where the business is and where you want it to go, look at your numbers, systems, reporting and team, score where you stand across six areas, fix a few practical things while we are there, and hand back a written picture and a roadmap. It costs £3,000.
How is it different from The Outside View? The Outside View is free and built entirely from outside the business, using public information only, so we never see your books. Where Are You At is the paid engagement where we come inside, look at the actual numbers under a mutual NDA, and leave you with a roadmap. The first is a read. The second is a review.
What access do you need? Read only sight of your accounting system, whatever management reporting already exists, and an hour or two of your time. Nothing is changed without your say so and there is no disruption to the people doing the work. Everything runs under a mutual NDA agreed before we start.
What if the review just tells us what we already know? Then we have not done our job. AI Finance Partners will not hand back something that only confirms what you could already see. There is always more, even if it is a handful of ratios and one question that changes how you look at the year. That is the difference between recording your numbers and making them work for you.
Do we have to do anything afterwards? No. There is no obligation to engage us for anything further. Plenty of owners take the roadmap and work through it themselves, and a one off review that makes you think differently is a good outcome on its own.