THE ENGAGEMENT PATH
The path from the free Audit to the finance brain your business runs on.
No 60-page proposal. No "book a call to learn pricing." A live diagnostic, a fixed-fee build, then the embedded seat, sold by deliverables, not days.
You've tried a fix before. It didn't hold.
The bookkeeper doesn't have the seniority to fix it. The full-time CFO you tried to hire cost too much and left. The dashboard vendor sold you a cockpit on top of data nobody enters. The accountant reads the trial balance once a year, nobody translates it into decisions. Sound about right?
Here is the honest read. This isn't an accounting problem, and a better accountant won't fix it. It isn't a dashboard problem, and a prettier dashboard makes it worse. It's a foundation problem, the flows between operations and finance stopped agreeing, and every tool on top of that pretends they still do.
So we come at it in a sequence. Diagnose it before we fix it. Fix it before we automate it. Automate it before we build the cockpit. Then stay embedded as the senior finance brain that turns the numbers into decisions.
STEP 1 · FREE · LIVE · 30–45 MIN
We go through your numbers with you, and tell you what they show.
A single live conversation, screen-to-screen. You show us what you have, the P&L, the cash position, whatever reporting your accountant or bookkeeper produces. We tell you what we see: two or three red flags, directionally, in plain language. What the reporting is telling you. What it's hiding. Whether the foundation is sound enough to build on, or whether the flows need repair first.
You leave with a clearer picture than you arrived with. If we are the right fit for what comes next, we will say. If we are not, we will say that too.
What you get:
Investment: Free. No hidden qualifier, no sales-team follow-up sequence.
STEP 2 · ONE FEE · ONE OUTCOME
The 8PEX Core Engagement, we diagnose, we fix, and we deliver reporting you trust.
One fee. One outcome. Diagnose the foundation, fix what is broken, deliver trustworthy automated management reporting on top. Not "here is a report, now here is another fee to implement it." The diagnosis and the fix are one engagement.
The work starts on your floor. Warehouse, front desk, production line, site, wherever your business runs. We map the flows, correct the data at source, connect the systems so operations reach finance without manual re-keying. Then we build the reporting on top that the owner, board, bank and investors can rely on.
Halfway through, we run a client-facing findings checkpoint, you see what we have found, you confirm the plan before we implement it. No black-box builds.
What you get:
OPTIONAL · SEPARATE DECISION · NEVER MONTH-ONE
The live cockpit on top of the reporting, drill-down, scenarios, forecasting, early warnings.
Once your foundation is trustworthy and the reporting is dependable, the next question opens up: what if the picture were live? Not a monthly close, a real-time view that lets you model a price change on Tuesday, stress-test the shoulder season, spot a margin drift before it becomes a cash hole.
That's the Power BI Intelligence Layer. It sits on top of the trustworthy reporting you already have from the Core Engagement. It is never bundled with the core, never delivered month-one, and never built on data that hasn't been cleaned.
Why it is separate: we have seen too many businesses sold a dashboard on top of bad data, beautiful charts, wrong numbers, faster. The order matters. Foundation first. Cockpit second, when you are ready and when the ground under it will hold it up.
What you get:
Prerequisite: Core Engagement completed (or equivalent trustworthy reporting foundation confirmed by 8PEX).
STEP 3 · THE EMBEDDED SEAT · RECURRING
A senior finance function embedded in your business. In the seat when it matters.
After the foundation is right, you have a system that works. What that system needs now is someone in the room when it matters. That's the Fractional CFO retainer.
We stay embedded as the strategic finance partner founders and CEOs steer the business with. Board and bank conversations. Capital allocation. The growth-versus-protection calls. Pricing decisions when the market moves. The strategic thinking on top of the numbers, not just the numbers.
Sold by deliverables, not days. You're not buying an hourly resource; you're buying named outcomes with a defined cadence. What that looks like in practice: monthly close signed off; board pack landed on time; a live bank pack when the facility needs renewing; capital-event support formalised (not absorbed into base days).
What you get:
STEP 4 · STEP-DOWN OR RUNWAY
A lighter cadence, for businesses that have stabilised, or aren't ready for the full seat yet.
A quarterly review, on-call access for the decisions that come up between, and drift detection, someone still keeping watch on the numbers even though they are no longer driving.
Not a substitute for the full retainer. This oversees; it doesn't drive. It's how a stabilised business steps down without leaving the relationship, or how a business that isn't quite ready for the full intensity yet gets one foot on the ladder without over-committing.
What you get:
Two ways in, depending on where your business is now.
IF YOU DON'T HAVE A FINANCE LEADER
The Fractional CFO leads.
Owner-managed businesses without a senior finance seat typically enter here. The Call surfaces the foundation issues. The Core Engagement fixes them and delivers trustworthy reporting. Then the Fractional CFO retainer becomes the embedded seat.
IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A CFO
The reporting build leads.
Larger groups with an in-house CFO typically enter on the reporting and Power BI value, an investor, lender or board is demanding management reporting that the current setup can't produce. Your CFO stays in the seat; we build the foundation and cockpit that lets them lead board and investor conversations with confidence.
This isn't for you if:
Your business is user-based SaaS with in-and-out churn, that's a different sale. You're VC-backed or private-equity-owned, that's another feeling, a different set of stakeholders, and it's not our lane. You're publicly listed, you already have the machinery. You're doing €500k a year and figuring it out, we'd be too much, too fast; come back when you're €1M+ and the departments have started disagreeing.
And here is the honest one. This isn't for you if you're looking for a report to hand to the board and be done with it. We don't sell reports. We rebuild the plumbing that produces reports you can trust , and then we stay in the room while you use them.
OFF-LADDER · ONE-TIME ENGAGEMENT
Standalone Diagnostic & Direction, for businesses that only need a paid diagnosis, or aren't ready for the full engagement.
Sometimes an owner needs a deep look under the hood without committing to the full Core Engagement. This is that. A paid, standalone diagnosis with a directional read on what to fix, an immediate small win, and one named priority you can act on right away.
It stands alone. You don't have to proceed to the Core Engagement, but if you do, the fee credits toward it. This is a service we offer, not the path we recommend. The Core Engagement is the load-bearing choice for most owners; the standalone is for the specific situation where a one-time engagement genuinely fits.
The Call is where every engagement starts.
30 minutes. Live conversation. You show us what you have; we tell you what we see. No cost, no pitch, no follow-up sequence.