Four cuts at once. Not one average with everybody in it.
A business is compared against companies running the same amount of work, doing the same thing, on the same side of the border, at the same age.
Two businesses of the same size behave alike whatever they sell. Bands are set on people and on how many transactions move through the ledger in a month, so a business is compared against companies running the same amount of work through the same size of finance function.
Sector is only useful when it is cut fine enough to matter. A recurring-revenue technology business and a project-based one share a label and share almost nothing else, so the set separates them, and every sector on the Industries page has its own peer group behind it.
A cross-border business is compared with cross-border businesses. Tax position, currency exposure, filing calendar and lender expectation all move together with geography, so region is a cut, not a footnote.
A company in its fourth year and a company in its fortieth are not the same business with different numbers. Working capital, margin stability and the shape of the balance sheet all move with age, so the set holds trading age as its own axis.
Twelve measures, held the same way for everybody in the set.
Each one is a number your business already produces. None of them needs a new system, and none of them is a figure a competitor could work backwards from.
Four positions, and the move that follows from each one.
Knowing the quartile is worth very little. Knowing what the businesses one band up are doing differently is the whole point of holding the set.
The work here is holding the position while the business grows into a larger band. Most of what breaks a strong finance function is the next size up, not the current one, so the plan is written against the band you are about to enter.
Usually two or three measures carrying the whole gap to the top quartile. They are identifiable in the first fortnight, and they are almost always cadence rather than capability.
This is the band where a single change in the close calendar moves four measures at once. The first ninety days are worth more here than anywhere else on this page.
A business lands here because the finance function was built for a smaller company and never rebuilt. The path out is well traveled, and the peer set shows exactly what the next band looks like from here.
Written down, so you can judge the comparison as well as the number.
A benchmark you cannot interrogate is a decoration. This is where the figures come from, how often they move, and what the set is not.
Anonymized operating data from the engagements the firm runs across both countries, plus published filings for the size bands where filings exist. Nothing identifiable, nothing attributable, and no client figure is ever shown to another client.
The set is rebuilt quarterly. A measure needs a minimum of forty businesses inside a band before it is reported at all, and a band that thins out is merged upward rather than published thin.
Your position on every measure, against all four cuts, with the trend across the last four quarters and the two measures that would move the most if they were addressed first. In editable format, yours to keep.
It is a comparison, not a score. Two businesses in different quartiles can both be running exactly the finance function their owners want. The set exists so the choice is made knowingly.
See where you sit before anyone else asks. The comparison is free and the answer is written.
One hour on your business, with the CFO who would hold the seat. We come back within two working days with your position on every measure above, against all four cuts of the peer set, and the two measures we would look at first.