CFO-level finance support for owner-managed businesses. For when the decisions are getting bigger.
Start with The Pelican Finance Health Check: a fixed-fee review of what is working, what is creating risk, and what to fix first. £2,500, with no retainer and no assumption that you need anything more.
The point at which finance starts to hold a business back
It rarely arrives as a finance problem. It usually arrives as one of these.
- Cash feels tighter than profit suggests it should.
- Management accounts arrive too late to change the decision they relate to.
- Growth is adding complexity faster than control is keeping up.
- Your accountant handles compliance well, but nobody is giving you senior finance opinion.
- Funding, investment or a lender conversation is coming, and the numbers need to stand up.
- An acquisition, a major hire, new premises or a sale is on the table, and the decision carries more weight than the ones before it.
The first step
The Pelican Finance Health Check
A fixed-fee, CFO-level review of your cash visibility, reporting, controls and finance priorities - what is working, what is creating risk, and what to fix first.
A bounded, fixed-fee diagnostic across six areas of your finance function, assessed against ten underlying dimensions and rated against your current stage rather than an abstract ideal. You receive a one-page scorecard, the top risks, the actions to take first, and an honest view on whether ongoing CFO support is justified - including when it is not.
£2,500 standard, or £3,500 with one focused deep dive.
What it reviews
- Cash visibility
- Reporting quality
- Forecasting and planning
- Finance control
- Finance team, process and systems
- Automation opportunity
What good finance information should tell you
You know your business better than anyone. The question is whether the financial detail behind it supports the decisions you are making now.
Illustrative example. Three lines from a sample scorecard, using anonymised sample data. No client data is used in demonstrations.
Cash is checked weekly from the bank balance, but there is no forward view beyond the current month.
Profit is visible in total only. Nobody can say which services or clients genuinely earn money.
No forecast was available to review. The absence is itself the finding.
Every dimension carries a rating, the evidence behind it and the action it implies. There is no total and no score: a numeric index would imply a benchmark that does not yet honestly exist. See the full scorecard.
How PelicanCFO works
Judgement
A senior finance opinion on what your numbers actually say, formed from the perspective of someone used to making decisions from them rather than simply reporting them.
Analysis
Practical analysis of what you already have. Weak or missing information is recorded as evidence about the finance function, not treated as a reason to stop.
Action
A short list of what to fix first, separated into the next thirty days, the next ninety, and the themes that need a longer run at them.
Your accountant and finance software may already do their jobs well. The gap is often a senior finance view on what the numbers mean for the decision in front of you. That judgement is what PelicanCFO adds.
Ongoing CFO support, where it is justified
Some businesses need a senior finance view regularly rather than once. Where the Health Check shows that, fractional CFO support picks up from the findings already on the table, and the Health Check fee is credited against ongoing CFO support started within 60 days.
For finance candidates
Interview Rehearsal
Structured spoken rehearsal of senior finance interview situations so candidates communicate more clearly and consistently under pressure.
Who is behind the advice
PelicanCFO is senior-led. The Health Check is designed so that the people forming the conclusions remain close to the information, the discussion and the recommendations.
PelicanCFO was founded by CFO James Lancaster.
PelicanCFO works with privately owned businesses across Guildford, Surrey and the wider South East, and is operated by Clifton House Consulting Limited, registered in England and Wales, company number 12506901.
Insights
Practical writing on senior finance: how finance functions stop supporting the business, and what senior finance conversations really test.
Would it be useful to know whether your numbers are ready for the decisions now in front of you?
The scoping call is free, takes twenty to thirty minutes, and gives you a straight answer on whether the Health Check is the right next step for you.