CPA & ADVISORY
Reports are late or hard to trust.
Financial reports arrive late, take too much explanation, or leave leadership spending too much time trying to understand the numbers.
Find out what is not working in your finance function, what needs to change, and what to do next.
For business owners, executives, and nonprofit leaders who need their accounting and finance function to work better.
Established small & midsize businessesPeoria & Central IllinoisRemote engagements available
THE SERVICE
What is a Finance Function Diagnostic?
A focused assessment of how your accounting and finance function currently operates: the information it produces, the people responsible for it, and the processes and systems behind it.
The review connects the numbers with how the work actually gets done. We agree on a focused scope around your concerns, the way the organization operates, and the decisions you need to make.
This is an operational assessment. It does not include audit, attestation, or other CPA assurance services.
WHEN IT IS USEFUL
The accounting is getting by.
Leadership needs more.
For owners and leaders of established small and midsize businesses, growth or a transition can reveal weaknesses in the finance function. Nonprofit leaders can face the same practical questions.
The close depends on one person.
Month-end takes too long, steps are undocumented, or a key person’s absence brings the work to a halt.
Workarounds have become the process.
Accounting has developed piecemeal as the company has grown, leaving manual work, spreadsheets, duplicate entry, and disconnected systems.
Responsibilities and controls are unclear.
You question whether the accounting team has the right roles or capacity, or whether reviews and approvals are strong enough.
The system is not doing enough.
QuickBooks, Sage, or another accounting system is in place, but it is not producing the reporting or efficiency the business needs.
A departure has exposed the gaps.
A Controller, accounting manager, or CFO departure has revealed weaknesses in the finance function and uncertainty about what comes next.
You may recognize one of these issues, or several. The diagnostic follows the concerns that matter in your organization.
WHAT IS REVIEWED
Look at the function as a whole.
Depending on the agreed scope, the review may include:
Reporting & the close
Financial and management reporting, month-end close, and the finance team’s ability to support management decision-making.
Accounting operations
Accounts payable, accounts receivable, and the workflows behind payments, billing, and collections.
Cash & planning
Cash management, budgeting, forecasting, and the information leadership uses to plan ahead.
Controls & approvals
Internal controls, review responsibilities, approval processes, and where oversight is weak or unclear.
Systems & integrations
How accounting systems connect, where data is entered more than once, and which processes are unnecessarily manual or inefficient.
People & responsibilities
Staffing, roles, team capacity, handoffs, and key-person dependency.
WHAT YOU RECEIVE
Clear priorities.
A practical way forward.
The purpose is to leave you with a clear view of what needs attention and a practical plan for addressing it.
The diagnostic stands on its own. You can use the findings and plan with your own team. There is no obligation to retain Undoer of Knots for implementation.
If additional help is useful, I can also assist with implementation, financial reporting, process improvement, systems, interim finance leadership, or ongoing fractional CFO support.
A clearer current state
Understand how the finance function operates today and where it is falling short of the organization’s needs.
The most important issues
Identify the weaknesses, risks, and bottlenecks that deserve management’s attention.
Prioritized recommendations
Separate the changes that matter most from improvements that can wait.
A practical sequence
Know what to address first and how the remaining recommendations fit together.
Clarity about who should help
Decide what can be handled internally and where outside help or additional talent may be needed.
YOUR ADVISOR
Tyler Greenman, CPA
An accountant’s discipline.
An operator’s perspective.
- 18+ years
- Finance, operations & organizational leadership
- Peoria, Illinois area
- Serving Central Illinois and clients remotely
I have spent my career inside organizations, working through the financial problems their leaders actually face.
My background includes serving as a VP of Accounting, Assistant CFO for a diocese, and CEO of a Catholic foundation. That experience shapes how I approach accounting operations, reporting, systems, controls, process improvement, and financial leadership.
I look at how the work gets done, where responsibility is unclear, and what leadership needs to understand. Recommendations need to work in the real operating environment of a business.
Undoer of Knots is based in the Peoria, Illinois area, serves Central Illinois, and can also work with clients remotely.
A USEFUL FIRST CONVERSATION