Outsourced commercial finance management

We run the commercial side of finance for the group: the people and routines that cost a proposal before it is sent, track margin by customer and channel, review pricing, challenge budgets with the commercial teams and report what sales are worth.

The function reports to the Managing Partner and, through that seat, to the chairman or chief executive.

• A deal desk routine that costs each significant quote and records the margin approved.
• A customer and channel margin report, issued monthly to the commercial leads.
• A pricing and discount governance paper with limits and escalation routes.
• A commercial calendar of budget challenges, forecast reviews and renewal dates.
• A quarterly commercial review to the chief executive, ending with the decisions needed.

• Significant quotes are costed before they go out, and the share that is gets reported.
• Margin by customer and channel sits beside the margin assumed at quotation.
• Discounts approved outside policy are counted and reported.
• The monthly commercial report reaches the commercial leads in fewer days.
• Commercial decisions come with a written financial case, and the board sees how many do.

In many groups the commercial team quotes first and finance finds out afterwards. Discounts, bundled services and special terms are agreed without anyone costing them. Finance explains the margin loss at month end, when it can no longer be changed. The group has a controller and no partner for the people who set the prices.

• Large quotes go out with a margin estimated by the salesperson.
• Finance sees a customer's profitability only after the contract is signed.
• Sales targets are set in revenue and nobody measures the margin that came with them.
• Budget reviews with commercial managers happen once a year, if at all.
• A senior commercial finance hire has been discussed for months and not made.

Owners and chief executives of commerce, distribution and logistics groups whose finance team keeps the books well but has no capacity or standing to work beside commercial managers, and who are not ready to build the function in house.

Qasim Abbas set the unit-economics and capital-allocation logic behind a blended last-mile fleet of about 1,000 vehicles at BaladiMart, where a price or a capacity call moved capital. We give your commercial team finance that answers on the timetable of the deal.

We work inside your ledger, CRM and order systems, costing each quote from the data they hold. See how fees work.

How is this different from a fractional CFO?

The CFO seat carries capital, lenders and the board. This service is the commercial finance function underneath it, and many groups hold both.

What happens if we hire our own team later?

We write the roles, support the search and hand over the deal desk routines, models and records.

Point us to a commercial decision made today on an estimate. We describe how the function handles it from the first quote.