What a finance function in this sector actually needs.
Landed cost is a guess, so the margin on imported lines is whatever the system says it is. And the largest customer is usually the worst one, but nobody can prove it because overhead is allocated on revenue.
We decompose the cash conversion cycle into days inventory, days receivable and days payable, and work the one with the most cash in it first. Stock gets aged by SKU against actual turns, with obsolescence recognized rather than deferred, and reorder points recalculated on real demand instead of a setting from three years ago.
Landed cost is rebuilt properly — freight, duty, tariff, currency and handling loaded to the item — because a distributor that does not know its landed cost does not know its margin.
Then customer and SKU-level profitability with cost-to-serve allocated on orders, deliveries and returns. It routinely reverses the ranking of the top ten accounts.
What you can do afterwards that you cannot do now.
Say exactly how much cash is trapped in stock and how much comes back for each action.
Know which accounts you are subsidizing.
Price imported lines on their real cost.
Matched to the sector, not the postcode.
With a named controller alongside them, a named backup on every seat, and the specialist bench behind both — all inside one fixed monthly fee.
Nobody needs all of it at once.
The diagnostic decides which two or three matter first in your business, and you keep that assessment either way.
Your sector is one conversation away from a written answer. Start with what is actually going on.
One hour on your business, with the CFO who would hold the seat rather than a salesperson. Nothing to prepare and nothing to sign. A written note back within two working days saying what we heard and what we would look at first.