BENCHMARKSUNITED STATES AND CANADA

You are being compared to somebody. Make it the right somebody.

A figure means nothing until you know who else is in the room. We hold a working peer set built four ways at once — by size band, by sector, by region, and by years trading — so that when a lender, a board member or a buyer asks how you compare, the answer is already written down and you know which comparison they are actually making.
01SIZE BAND
02SECTOR
03REGION
04YEARS TRADING
01
SIZE BAND
Headcount and transaction volume, not revenue.

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.

Bands in the set6
Businesses per band, minimum40
RefreshedQuarterly
02
SECTOR
What the business actually does, at the level that changes the numbers.

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.

Sectors held12
Sub-groups inside them31
Measures per sector18
03
REGION
United States and Canada, and the border between them.

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.

Regions2
Cross-border sub-setHeld separately
Currency pairs tracked1
04
YEARS TRADING
How long the business has been doing this.

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.

Age bands5
Youngest bandUnder 3 years
Oldest band25 years and over
WHAT IS MEASURED
Twelve measures, held the same way for everybody in the set.
Each one is a number the business already produces. None of them requires a new system, and none of them is a figure a competitor could work backwards from.
 
MEASURE
UNIT
WHY IT IS ON THE LIST
01
Close completion
working day
Which working day the books actually close on, month after month, not the day the policy says.
02
Pack delivery
working day
How long after the close the board pack lands, and whether it lands on the same day every month.
03
Cash conversion cycle
days
Days from paying for the work to being paid for it, which is the number that decides how much funding a growing business needs.
04
Receivable age
days
Weighted, not average, so one large slow account cannot hide behind fifty fast ones.
05
Payable age
days
Held against agreed terms rather than against the calendar, so paying early shows up as the choice it is.
06
Gross margin
percent
By line and by unit, because a blended figure moves for reasons nobody can name.
07
Operating margin
percent
After the finance function is fully costed, including the seats a growing business has not filled yet.
08
Forecast accuracy
percent
Last twelve months of forecasts measured against what actually happened, which is the only test of a forecast that means anything.
09
Covenant headroom
ratio
Against every covenant, at the test date rather than today, with the trend on it.
10
Reconciliation currency
percent
How much of the ledger was reconciled within a day of the movement.
11
Revenue per finance seat
index
Indexed to the peer band, so it says how much finance function the business is carrying.
12
Audit adjustments
count
How many the auditor proposed, which is the cleanest single read on the quality of a close.
WHERE A BUSINESS SITS
Four positions, and the move that follows from each one.
UPPER QUARTILE
Ahead of the peer 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.

SECOND QUARTILE
Above the middle

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.

THIRD QUARTILE
Below the middle, with the most room

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.

FOURTH QUARTILE
The largest opportunity in the set

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.

HOW THE SET IS KEPT
Written down, so you can judge the comparison as well as the number.
WHERE IT COMES FROM

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.

HOW OFTEN IT MOVES

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.

WHAT YOU RECEIVE

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.

WHAT IT IS NOT

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.

What Happens Next

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.
ONE HOUR · NO CHARGE · A WRITTEN NOTE BACK WITHIN TWO WORKING DAYS
THE HOURWhat the business does, how the cash moves through it, and what would have to be different in a year.
THE CUTSYour size band, your sector, your region and your trading age, so the comparison is the one that applies.
THE POSITIONWhere you sit on every measure on this page, with the trend across four quarters.
THE TWOThe two measures that would move the most if they were addressed first, and what moving them takes.

05Start

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