Case Study: Recovery & Rebuild

DTC Brand Rebuilt
Post-Administration.

From zero financial visibility to absolute control. How we stabilised a £3.2m revenue enterprise following acquisition out of administration.

Industry

DTC eCommerce

Revenue

£3.2m ARR

Stage

Post-Acquisition

Key Tech

Cin7 + Shopify

The Problem

Following the acquisition, the business had no functioning finance environment. The new owner was attempting to rebuild the operation without any financial or operational baseline.

  • No reliable financial records post-administration.
  • No stock tracking system in place at all.
  • No visibility over actual inventory or margins.
  • No structured month-end or cash forecasting.

Our Diagnosis

Systems Failure

No inventory platform meant zero control over stock or COGS. Disconnected systems between Shopify and accounting created a data black hole.

Process Vacuum

Without a month-end close or reporting structure, the owner was making decisions based on assumptions, risking cash mismanagement.

Structure Mismatch

The issue wasn't a lack of a CFO; it was an over-reliance on a junior resource performing multiple specialist roles simultaneously.

The Solution

We implemented a Full Finance Stack solution, prioritising stabilisation before optimisation.

Layer 1

Foundation

  • • Reconstructed core financial records
  • • Implemented Cin7 for stock control
  • • Built the Finance Command Centre
  • • Integrated Shopify & Xero ecosystems
Layer 2

Control

  • • Implemented 5-day month-end close
  • • Introduced structured mgmt accounts
  • • Built 13-week rolling cash forecasts
  • • Established full inventory & WIP tracking
Layer 3

Strategy

  • • Decision support for the new owner
  • • Product-level margin analysis
  • • Working capital prioritisation
  • • Transitioned recovery → growth

The Finance Command Centre

We designed a bespoke "single source of truth" dashboard that unified production data (yield & waste) with financial data (margin & cash). Within one engagement, the owner moved from reactive guesswork to proactive control.

Real-time Margin
Inventory Yield
Bespoke System Build

The Results

Stock Variance

£150k <£10k

Forensic inventory control achieved via Cin7.

Month-End Close

21 Days 5 Days

Repeatable, audit-ready reporting cadence.

Cash Visibility

None 13 Weeks

Proactive liquidity forecasting and control.

Annual Savings

Saved £120k+

Vs hiring a multi-disciplinary internal team.

What level of finance was actually needed?

Instead of hiring 1 or 2 full-time generalists, the business used the exact fractional capacity required at each specialist layer.

Total Hours Deployable

2,829 Annual BAU Hours

Ledger Clerk0.67 FTE
Management Accountant0.35 FTE
Finance Manager0.63 FTE
Financial Controller0.26 FTE
Finance Director0.12 FTE
Strategic CFO0.07 FTE

Outcome

"Finance is no longer a risk area; it is a platform that actively supports our recovery. We went from zero visibility to margin-level control in three months."

— owner, DTC Food Group

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