SELECTED WORK
Real businesses. Real fixes.
Every case below is a real engagement or a real pattern we have resolved multiple times. Named clients appear only where we have written consent. Where we don't, we have anonymised, because in small markets, discretion is part of the product.
HOSPITALITY & MANUFACTURING GROUP · CYPRUS
From disconnected systems to a single management picture, across 2,500 people and 85+ outlets.
The challenge
A large Cyprus family group. Manufacturing lines feeding 85+ retail and hospitality outlets, US operations, real estate exposure. Legacy accounting system, no ERP, no single source of truth. POS, manufacturing, waste, sales, finance, all in different tools, none of them talking. Static P&L exports with limited drill-down. Store-level profitability was a manual project every time it was asked for. Cash flow forecasting across the group was a monthly firefight.
The approach
A transformation framework built around a globally-recognised ERP integrated with BI reporting. Structured invoice and expense workflows into the ERP. Expense and asset controls with spending caps and budget controls. Automated financial and operational reporting with drill-down from group to unit level. Banking and reconciliation automation. Connected operations-to-finance data pipes, sales, production, waste, flowing to the ledger without manual re-keying.
The outcome
A single cockpit. Group-to-unit drill-down. Store-level profitability visible in real time. Consolidated group reporting cut from a monthly firefight to a routine close.
Why we are showing this case
This is where the founder of 8PEX ran FP&A for two and a half years. It is the exact kind of complex family business we now serve, and where the pattern-library got built. What we do at 8PEX today is take the parts of this playbook that work at €1M–€50M scale and deliver them to businesses that couldn't previously justify the machinery.
INDUSTRIAL MACHINES MANUFACTURER · CYPRUS · ~25 STAFF
From the owner doing the CFO's job to an embedded finance seat the board can rely on.
The challenge
A Cyprus manufacturer of industrial machines, around 25 people, exporting globally. Project-based work, long sales cycles, multiple banking relationships, a board, investors, periodic funding rounds. Small on headcount, complicated everywhere else. The day-to-day didn't add up to a full-time finance seat, but the business still needed CFO-level thinking: cash-flow projections, a credible monthly close, someone who could stand in front of banks, investors and the board. They tried to grow the bookkeeper into the role. It didn't take, because keeping the ledgers running and driving a finance function are different jobs, and nobody had written the second one down. A full-time CFO hire before that had been a bad fit and left. So management did the CFO work themselves, and sales and operations paid for it. Legacy holes in the finance function sat unclosed, because nobody had time to dig.
The approach
8PEX entered as embedded Fractional CFO, roughly a day to a day and a half a week, sold by deliverables. The first phase was setting up the system and going digging: question everything in detail, surface the legacy issues, close them one by one. The monthly close, the board pack, bank and investor conversations and corporate-finance planning moved to 8PEX. The bookkeeper stayed on the day-to-day, now with someone to drive. Familiarity with the accounting system the company already ran meant no rip-and-replace and no implementation drama.
The outcome (from the owner)
"She questioned everything, cleaned up years of legacy issues in finance, and now our numbers hold up in front of the bank and the board. Every decision we make sits on real data."
The engagement is months old, not years. We publish numbers when they are real, and this page will carry them when they are. What has already moved: the monthly close runs, board and bank reporting is credible, the legacy holes are closing one by one, and management's time is back on sales and operations instead of finance admin.
Why we are showing this case
The problem here was never reporting. It was that the owner was the CFO, and everything else the business needed from him was paying for it. It also shows how the decision itself gets de-risked: after a full-time hire that didn't fit, this owner proved the fit at low commitment first, then made it permanent.
FOOD-PROCESSING MANUFACTURER · CYPRUS · ~29 STAFF
From "doubled the business and lost the numbers" to fixed farmer contracts and €24k/year saved from one operational decision.
The challenge
A growing Cyprus food-processing manufacturer. The owner had doubled his customer base and doubled his headcount inside a year. He knew his business, until the numbers stopped keeping up. He couldn't say the real selling price relative to total cost. Couldn't say his real margin. Couldn't answer where the cash was going. His auditor read the trial balance once a year and never asked whether the profit was real. He tried to manage alone, classic operator temperament, don't open the books to a stranger.
The approach
Trust was the gate before the offer. Efi got embedded, on the factory floor, in the operational data flows, reading the human side of how decisions were made. The audit surfaced the specific gaps: unstructured farmer contracts letting input costs move at will, undifferentiated product costing, no live margin picture. The Core Engagement fixed those flows: farmer contracts with 6-to-12-month fixed pricing to lock margin at the input. Product-line costing rebuilt from the operational data. Then the Fractional CFO retainer took over the ongoing steering.
The outcome (from the founder)
"Inside one year, we earned back the cost of salaries and machinery from decisions we could finally back with real numbers. She is my partial CFO. She came to the factory to see how the business really runs before advising on anything."
€24k/year saved from a single operational decision the numbers finally supported.
Why we are showing this case
Two things. First, trust in owner-managed manufacturing precedes the offer, you don't open your books to a stranger. What earned it was being in the mud, over time, under pressure. Second, the wins compound. One operational decision the numbers supported returned the annual fee inside twelve months.
What clients say.
"Efi cleaned up years of mess in our finance department. Now our numbers hold up, our decisions sit on real data, and she talks to the bank and the board like she has been with us for years."
Owner, industrial machines manufacturer, Cyprus
"Within six months, I knew my real product costs, my real margins, and where the cash was going. Efi spent time on the factory floor before giving advice, so her recommendations fit how we work. Inside a year, the decisions we made from those numbers paid for the engagement."
Owner, Cyprus food-processing manufacturer
Every case starts the same way.
A live conversation. 30 minutes. We go through your numbers with you, and tell you what they show.