We are ready to pull the trigger on hiring you, but our internal numbers and financial reporting are currently messy and unreliable. Do we need to clean up our bookkeeping and build an accurate financial dashboard before our first session, or do we fix that during our initial work together?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Do not wait for perfect data to start. Messy books are a symptom of a weak operating model, not a reason to delay. If you wait until your financials are pristine, you will never begin. We will address this head-on during your very first session, which is Focus Day.

During our initial sessions, we build your first Scorecard. This is a collection of five to fifteen weekly, forward-looking activity metrics. It is not an accounting statement. The Scorecard measures weekly activity, while financial statements measure history. Even if your past books are a disaster, we can still track how many sales calls were made, how many proposals went out, and how many client issues were resolved last week.

As we define who owns what on your Accountability Chart, we will establish clear ownership over your financial function. The person sitting in the Finance seat will be given a specific Rock to clean up the bookkeeping, reconcile the past data, and deliver clean reports within their first ninety days.

If your books are messy, it means you lack a repeatable process and clear accountability. We use the EOS® framework to define what clean books actually look like and then hold the responsible leader accountable to deliver them. Bring your messy numbers to the table. We will use our first ninety-day cycle to build the disciplined processes required to fix them permanently.