Give your business a boost.
Sick of watching profit disappear into expenses each quarter, or making less as you grow? We build profit plans that go beyond 'sell more, spend less' - and stay beside you while they work.
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The power of a profit improvement plan.
If you really want to boost profits you need a map, not a mood. Your plan is custom-built through in-person sessions with your advisor, then revised regularly so it stays current with business conditions.
Profit improvement plan
Step-by-step guidance to your profit goals: the levers, the order to pull them, and the numbers that prove it is working.
Quarterly profit assessment
Every quarter we check how profit is being allocated - reinvestment, debt, war chest, your pocket - and rebalance so growth stays healthy and sustainable.
Profit war chest
A deliberate reserve that smooths the slow months and lets you move fast on opportunities, built from a set slice of each quarter's profit.
From first chat to better margins.
- 01
Consultation
We get to know you and your business over a relaxed first chat (and a good coffee). You tell us your goals, we show you how we work. No cost, no obligation.
- 02
Set-up
We set your structure and Xero file up properly, or tidy up what you have. Our team does this every week, so it is quick and painless.
- 03
Action
Your advisor gets to work: tax strategy, compliance, bookkeeping and the numbers you need to run the business, all handled and explained in plain English.
- 04
Review
We meet regularly through the year to review performance against your goals, adjust the strategy and catch opportunities while they still matter.
Margin usually moves once you can see which work earns its keep, which takes costing that reaches job level and a budget to measure against. One CFO engagement lifted gross margin from 24.1% to 27.3% doing precisely that, without the client changing the work they took on.
What this looks like in practice.
A specialist manufacturer, $7.2m revenue, 34 staff, three product families.
Case study · Profit improvementRevenue grew 22%. Profit did not move at all.A margin bridge that showed exactly where the growth went, split by price, volume and mix. See what changed
The background
A good year on any headline measure. Revenue up 22%, the order book healthy, two new customers won. The owner expected the profit line to follow and it did not, and no amount of staring at the profit and loss explained it.
The challenge
A profit and loss shows what happened. It does not show why, because it cannot separate the three quite different things that move a margin: what you charged, how much you sold, and what you sold. Growth had come disproportionately from the lowest-margin product family and from one large customer negotiated at a discount. Input costs had risen and been absorbed rather than passed on, because prices had last moved eighteen months earlier and nobody owned the decision. And the growth had been produced with overtime rather than with capacity, so the extra volume carried a labour premium on every unit.
The approach
Build the bridge from last year's profit to this year's, with every step named. Once the movement is decomposed, the argument about what to do stops being a matter of opinion.
How the work ran
Weeks 1–4
Decompose the movement
A margin bridge from prior-year to current-year gross profit, split into price, volume, mix, input cost and labour efficiency. Each step quantified. The mix effect and the absorbed input cost together accounted for almost the whole of the missing profit - and neither had been visible in any report the business already produced.
Weeks 5–10
Price, and own the decision
Product-family pricing was reviewed against actual current cost rather than against the last price list. A scheduled review cycle was introduced with a named owner, because the underlying failure was not the price - it was that nobody was responsible for revisiting it.
Weeks 11–20
Capacity instead of overtime
Capacity utilisation was measured by line rather than assumed from the roster. The overtime premium on incremental volume was quantified and compared against the cost of adding capacity. Monthly accountability against the bridge kept the changes from quietly reverting once attention moved on.
What changed
- Profit movement
- unexplaineddecomposed into five drivers
- Pricing
- 18 months since last reviewscheduled, with an owner
- Mix
- invisiblereported by product family
- Input cost increases
- absorbedtracked and passed through
- Incremental volume
- run on overtimecosted against added capacity
Growth that does not reach the profit line has gone somewhere specific, and there are only ever a handful of places it can be. The bridge finds it in weeks. Staring at the profit and loss does not find it at all.
A worked example, built from the pattern these engagements follow in profit improvement. The business is composite and unnamed; the mechanics, the sequence and the order of work are the ones we use. Talk to us about your own numbers.
Frequently asked questions.
What is a profit improvement plan?
A written, custom plan for your business: where margin is leaking, which levers to pull first (pricing, mix, costs, productivity), targets for each, and a cadence for tracking them. It is built with your advisor in person and revised as conditions change.
My revenue grows but profit doesn't. Can you help?
That pattern is exactly what a profit plan is for. Growth often hides margin erosion - underpriced work, creeping costs, unprofitable customers. The numbers show where; the plan fixes it.
What is a profit war chest?
A deliberate buffer built from a set percentage of profit each quarter. It smooths lumpy cashflow, funds opportunities and takes the fear out of slow months. We help you size it and keep it honest.
How quickly will I see results?
Pricing and cost actions usually show up within a quarter. Structural changes take longer. Either way you will see the trajectory in your Fathom reports, not just feel it.
Become profitable on purpose.
One free session is enough to see which levers your business isn't pulling.
Or call 07 3899 8311.