MONTHLY ACCOUNTING · DASHBOARDS · TWELVE-MONTH PLANS
Know where you stand.
Know where you're headed.
Books, close, and reporting handled every month — plus a real plan for the next twelve.
Most owners can get their books done. What they can't get is a straight answer to the questions that actually matter: Can I afford to hire? Can I take a distribution this year? What happens to cash if my biggest customer pays late? North Arrow handles the accounting so those questions have real numbers behind them — and then we sit down every month and answer them.
How It Works
Handled. Clear. Headed.
Handled.
Books closed and reconciled every month. Payroll, bills, sales tax, year-end — done, on time, without you chasing it. Clean and tax-ready, no surprises.
Clear.
One page. The five or six numbers that matter for your business, updated every month, in plain language. You should be able to read it in five minutes and know exactly where you stand.
Headed.
A twelve-month plan for revenue, margin, and cash — built on how your business actually works, not last year plus five percent. We review it together every month: what changed, what it means, what to do next.
The North Arrow Plan
Every client gets a plan. Not an add-on — the point.
Plenty of firms will close your books. Some will send you a forecast once a year. What's rare is a partner who does both and keeps them connected — so the plan you're working from is built on numbers that are actually right, and gets updated when reality changes.
That's what we call The North Arrow Plan: a rolling twelve-month view of where the business is going, a one-page dashboard showing whether you're on track, and a monthly conversation about what to do about it. It's included in every monthly engagement.
Rolling 12-month forecast
Revenue, margin, cash. Driver-based, so when a price or a customer or a hire changes, the plan changes with it.
One-page dashboard
Actuals against plan. Built in whatever tool fits: Fathom, Reach Reporting, Upmetrics, PlanGuru, or plain Excel.
Monthly conversation
Thirty minutes to an hour, in person or on a call. No jargon. Honest guidance, even when it's not what you were hoping to hear.
The Foundation
The books have to be right, or the plan is fiction. So we handle them.
Bookkeeping, monthly close, bank and credit card reconciliation, payables and receivables, payroll coordination, sales tax, and year-end-ready financials. It's the foundation everything else sits on, and it's included. You'll never think about it again — which is sort of the idea.
Behind on the books? We do cleanup and catch-up as a fixed-price project before the monthly work starts.
Who We Serve
Built for growing businesses that are about to make a bet.
We work best with businesses between $500K and $2M in revenue — past the startup phase, growing, and facing a real decision: a hire, a second location, new equipment, a new sales channel, a bank line. The kind of decision you shouldn't make on a gut feeling and a bank balance.
Industries We've Worked In
Consumer Packaged Goods
Production cost, trade spend, distributor and retail margins, the cash gap between making it and getting paid for it.
E-Commerce
Inventory, platform fees, high transaction volume, multi-state sales tax.
Hospitality
Restaurants, lodging, and service businesses with seasonal and uneven cash flow.
Manufacturing
Cost of goods, working capital, and equipment decisions.
Situations We've Navigated
Cash Crunch & Financing
Worked through tight cash positions and helped secure financing facilities to stabilize operations.
Investor-Ready Strategic Plans
Developed 5-year strategic plans and financial models for investor presentations.
Accounts Payable Management
Managed vendor relationships and payables strategically during periods of constrained cash.
Financial Statement Review
Reviewed and validated outsider-prepared financials to ensure accuracy and reliability.
Post-Acquisition Cleanup
Untangled books and established clean accounting practices following an acquisition.
Emergency Accounting Cleanup
Reconciled three years of unreconciled bank statements in under a week to meet an acquirer's financial due diligence deadline.
Acquisition Data Rooms
Organized and prepared financial documentation to support potential acquisition processes.
Proof
What "the plan" actually looks like.
This is a one-page operating model for a growth-stage snack brand — the drivers on the left, and what happens to margin, EBITDA, and cash when you change them. The data is invented; the format is what our CPG and e-commerce clients get.
Sample operating model. Fictional brand, illustrative data.
Want the short version? Download The 5 Numbers — the handful of figures every $1M business owner should look at every month.
Client Feedback
What clients say.
“Dave did a fantastic job! I would highly recommend him. Very knowledgeable and very easy to work with. He makes the accounting side of things seem like a breeze!”
“Great consultation with David! He was professional, experienced in his field, and very knowledgeable and helpful! I highly recommend!”
Get Started
Ready to know where you're headed?
Let's have a conversation. We'll learn about your business, walk through how we work, and figure out together whether we're the right fit. No pitch, no pressure.