An honest look at
where margin is
leaking.
Twelve questions, a five-point honesty scale. When you're done you'll see a band, a dollar exposure range calibrated to your revenue, and a specific interpretation written for firms your size.
Tell us about your firm.
Payroll Drift.
Whether each hire is paying for itself.
We track revenue produced per employee at least quarterly and compare it against each role's fully loaded cost.
When we hire someone new, we can tie that hire to a specific revenue expectation and review their actual production within the first 12 months.
Vendor Sprawl.
Whether anyone owns the vendor list.
One person or team owns a current, complete list of every vendor the firm pays, and that list gets reviewed at least once a year.
Before any vendor contract renews, someone reviews the terms, compares pricing to market, and confirms we still need the service.
We've checked whether different departments or offices are paying separate vendors for services that overlap or do essentially the same thing.
Billing Lag.
Whether the gap between work and cash is measured.
We know the average number of days between when work is completed and when the invoice goes out, and we actively manage that number.
We know our current DSO (days sales outstanding) and have a specific target we manage against.
We track the dollar amount of billable time that gets written down or written off each quarter, and we know the trend.
Software Redundancy.
Whether seats match people who still use them.
Before renewing any software contract, someone reviews how many licensed seats are actually being used and cancels the ones that aren't.
We've audited our software stack in the past year to identify tools that do essentially the same thing, purchased by different teams at different times.
Approval Bottlenecks.
Whether decisions move when leadership doesn't.
If the primary decision-maker in our firm is out for a week, pricing decisions, vendor approvals, and client proposals continue moving at a normal pace.
We know the average number of days it takes for a decision that requires leadership approval to get made, and we're comfortable with that number.