The Diagnostic
Three to five weeks. Full financial visibility. A scorecard your banker, your CPA, and your buyer can all rely on. $8,000 standard. companies under $20M.
CPA, MBA · Fixed scope, fixed fee · Refundable deposit if not a fit · Maximum 2 new Diagnostics per month
The Diagnostic is built for owner-operators of US owner-led and PE-backed companies and adjacent owner-operated businesses doing between $2M and $10M in annual revenue.
If you recognize one of the following, the Diagnostic was built for you:
If none of this resonates, the Diagnostic is probably not the right starting point. Send a message and we will help you find what is.
Built live with you. Receivables by customer, payroll by crew, materials by vendor, fixed overhead, owner comp, tax reserve. Updated every Friday for the duration of the engagement.
Last 6 months. Revenue, direct costs, indirect costs, contribution margin, and net by job. Patterns identified across estimators, crews, and customer types.
12-point rubric grading your financials against what a commercial lender expects from a company under $20M. Specific, not generic.
15 indicators graded red, yellow, or green. The artifact you put on the desk in your next financial meeting.
30, 90, and 180-day priorities ranked by financial impact and operational difficulty. Specific decisions, not vague recommendations.
You, your senior financial staff if applicable, and Edwin. We walk every artifact, answer every question, and end with three decisions on the table.
Full Diagnostic as described above. The default for most companies under $20M $2M to $6M.
Standard plus deeper pricing analysis, banker readiness review with two strategic sessions, and a sell-side or buy-side preview if a transaction is on the horizon. Default for $5M+ businesses or pre-transaction owners.
Premium plus full pricing model build, complete banker package buildout, 30 days of post-Diagnostic Slack and email access, and the first month of retainer scope work included as a transition.
50% deposit on signing, 50% on delivery.
Fixed scope, fixed fee, concrete deliverables. You keep every artifact, the forecast, the job-cost analysis, the banker package, whether or not we work together after.
Confirms fit, scope, and timing. If we are not the right partner, we say so and point you to a better one.
Same day or next day after discovery call.
Bank statements, AR aging, job costs, payroll. We rebuild the financial picture from the source data.
13-week cash forecast, job profitability analysis, banker readiness scorecard.
Financial health one-pager, prioritized action list, 90-minute readout meeting. (Standard ends here.)
Banker readiness review, transaction preview, additional strategic sessions.
Full pricing model, banker package buildout, retainer transition kickoff.
Approximately two-thirds of clients move into retainer.
Your CPA handles compliance: tax returns, sales tax, payroll filings, year-end close. The Diagnostic handles decisions: pricing, cash, banker readiness, exit planning. Different lanes, same financial team. We work alongside your CPA.
Most assessments are not worth it. Ours is structured to produce decision-ready artifacts that pay for themselves multiple times over inside 90 days. You keep every concrete deliverable regardless of whether you continue.
Comprehensive when you are committed to moving directly into a Fractional CFO retainer (the first month of retainer scope is included, saving you re-onboarding time) or you are pre-transaction with a 12 to 24 month exit window and want the banker package fully built rather than just reviewed.
Roughly one in three Diagnostic clients does not move into a retainer. That is fine and expected. You keep all six artifacts, the action list, and the working models.
NDA on day one. Read-only access to systems unless explicitly granted otherwise. We do not name clients publicly without permission.
We also work with specialty manufacturers, fabricators, distributors, and adjacent owner-operated businesses with similar financial DNA. Send a message and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right fit.
A typical engagement starts within 7 to 14 days of the discovery call. We take a maximum of two new Diagnostics per month to maintain quality.
Approximately 4 to 6 hours total over three weeks for the Standard tier. Add 2 to 3 hours each for Premium and Comprehensive tiers.
A word from Edwin
The Diagnostic exists because most fractional CFO engagements start without a clear baseline. Both sides are guessing about what is broken, and the first three months become a tour of the problem instead of work on the solution.
The Diagnostic fixes that. By the time we sit down at the start of any retainer, the books, the cash, the banker readiness, and the priorities are all clear. The retainer starts at month two, not month four.
The fee is structured to filter out tire-kickers, because tire-kickers waste your time and mine. The scope is fixed and the deliverables are concrete because clarity up front is the cheapest marketing in the world.
If the Diagnostic is not the right fit, the discovery call will tell us both. The call costs nothing and the conversation is honest. Book it.
Edwin
A 25-minute discovery call costs nothing and tells us both whether a Diagnostic is the right next step. If it is not, we will say so and point you in the right direction.
Book a 25-minute discovery call