An Australian sports nutrition business was spending $800,000 a year running finance in-house. Nine months later the same function cost $400,000, closed faster, and reported earlier.
- Client
- An Australian-owned sports nutrition business blending natural protein powders and supplements at its own facility on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
- Founded
- 2013
- Annual turnover
- AUD $60 million+
- Scope
- Accounts payable, accounts receivable, billings, payroll, reconciliations, month-end close
The starting point
A capable team, carrying a structure that had outgrown it
The client ran a full in-house finance function covering accounts payable, receivables, billings, payroll and month-end reporting. The annual cost of that function was $800,000.
The people were not the problem. The shape of the work was. Senior staff spent their weeks on transactional processing, month-end ran long, and reporting reached the leadership team after the decisions it was meant to inform had already been made.
What we did
Four moves, in order
- 01Mapped every finance process, system and approval point before changing anything.
- 02Took over the transactional layer: AP, AR, billings, payroll and reconciliations.
- 03Rebuilt the month-end close around a fixed calendar with named owners.
- 04Kept senior review and sign-off in place on every deliverable.
The result
The same function, at half the cost
Nine months in, the same finance function cost $400,000 a year and produced tighter, faster reporting than the in-house structure it replaced.
Annual cost before
$800,000
The right-hand half is the part that no longer exists. It comes back to the business every year.
