Carr Accounting StudioChartered Accountants
Team · 02

You've built a team. Nobody owns the numbers. That stops here.

When you're running a founder-led business, finance is often the last function to get proper ownership — even though it's the one that tells you whether any of the rest is working. We step in as your finance partner, run the function end-to-end, and give you back the time and clarity to run the business.

01 — Where you are

Founder, you're probably dealing with…

A familiar pattern: a part-time bookkeeper doing their best, a founder making spending calls based on the bank balance, and finance always feeling like it's two months behind reality.

What's painful
  • Bookkeeping that's always "mostly caught up"
  • Management accounts that arrive too late to act on
  • Making hiring and spending decisions without real numbers
  • Cash flow surprises you should have seen coming
  • Being the one chasing invoices, chasing VAT, chasing answers
  • A finance setup held together with duct tape and good intentions
What working with us looks like
  • A finance function that runs itself — you don't have to be in the middle
  • Bookkeeping, payroll, month-end, compliance — all handled to a proper standard
  • Cash flow on a proper timeline, by people who know what they're doing
  • Numbers you can make decisions from — not just "what happened"
  • A finance partner on your team for board, leadership, hiring decisions
  • One point of contact — we coordinate with anyone else already in the mix
02 — What you'll get

A complete finance function. Built around your business.

We don't slot in alongside what you've got — we own the function. That includes the bits other accountants quietly leave for you to chase yourself.

  • Month-end close

    Monthly

    Properly closed by day five. Not week three. With reports your business can actually use.

  • Management accounts

    Monthly

    Cash, revenue, margin — clear, consistent, on a calendar you can plan around.

  • Payroll & staff

    Monthly

    Monthly payroll, pension auto-enrolment, P11Ds — handled. We coordinate with your providers.

  • VAT, year-end & tax

    Quarterly + annual

    Quarterly VAT, statutory accounts, corporation tax. Properly planned, with deadlines handled before they become urgent.

  • Cash flow & runway

    Quarterly

    13-week cash, scenario planning, "what if we hire two more?" — answered before you make the call.

  • Senior finance in the room

    As needed

    Board conversations, leadership calls, hiring decisions — we sit in, with proper finance perspective.

03 — What this looks like

An illustrative story.

Anonymised but typical — a £1.5m agency, ten staff, a part-time bookkeeper doing their best. The pattern repeats across founder-led businesses.

CASE · 028

From bookkeeper duct‑tape to a finance function that runs itself.

£1.5m agency with a team of ten comes to us with the classic founder-led finance mess: a part-time bookkeeper doing their best, management accounts arriving whenever they arrived, and a founder making spending decisions based on the bank balance. The founder just promoted someone into a senior role, then realised they have no idea whether they could afford the uplift.

We take over the whole function. Within two months, the books are current, the close was landing by day five, and the founder is getting a monthly pack with cash position, P&L by service line, and a simple forecast. Six months in, the biggest change isn't the numbers — it's that the founder stops carrying finance around in their head.

Snapshot · Six months
  • Day 5 ↓Month-end
  • 13-week ↑Cash visibility
  • MonthlyManagement accounts
  • Numbers-backedHiring decisions
  • ZeroVAT / payroll surprises
  • ReturnedFounder's headspace
04 — What's included

The whole function — clearly scoped, calmly run.

One team owning bookkeeping, close, payroll, compliance and the senior conversations, on a rhythm you can plan around. You see exactly what's covered, and it's yours to lean on when decisions come up.

Made for founder-led teams
  • Monthly bookkeeping & close (by day 5)
  • Monthly management accounts
  • Payroll & pension auto-enrolment
  • Quarterly VAT & Making Tax Digital
  • Year-end accounts & corporation tax
  • Director self-assessment(s)
  • Quarterly cash flow & planning review
  • Senior finance support — board, leadership, hiring
  • Direct line — Slack, email, phone

Onboarding

Two to four weeks. We review your existing stack, keep what works, patch the gaps, clean historic books, and document a proper baseline.

As you raise

Investor-grade reporting, board packs and fractional CFO time step in as you need them — same relationship, more depth, nothing about how we work together changes.

If you need full-time?

We'll tell you. And we'll often help you hire and shape the role.

Ready when you are

Want the function to run itself?

30 minutes, no pitch. We'll talk through where you are, what's currently broken, and what "running itself" would look like for your business.