Scenario Three

Newsletter

Short pieces on the finance decisions owners actually face.

  1.  •  5 min read Xero to NetSuite Past $15M every owner asks me whether to move to NetSuite or keep Xero and bolt things on. I lay out what each stack is made of, then the seven triggers that actually force the choice. Five insights on why the pressure to move comes from an auditor or a bank, never from inside.
  2.  •  4 min read How to determine your rate card Owners anchor on the competitor’s rate card when the only honest starting point is what a person costs you. I build a senior consultant’s $150k salary up to the $1,940 a day it has to bill, then run the same arithmetic for a lawyer and an architect. Five insights on why utilisation, not the rate, is usually the leak.
  3.  •  6 min read I don’t like Copilot Most owners have been handed Copilot because it is Microsoft, and few have seen it next to Claude or ChatGPT. I cost three kinds of person across all three, then show what to budget by role as a share of salary. Six insights on what comes back, what it really costs, and why your IT provider probably likes Copilot.
  4.  •  4 min read Finance functions should cost < 3% of revenue The question I get asked most, at every size: how much should the finance function cost? I put the answer at 1 to 3% of revenue, falling as you scale, with a ladder of who runs finance at each stage and two worked examples at $3M and $30M. Four insights on complexity, the fractional CFO step, and the $50M threshold.