How we work
From the first call to the day your team runs it without us.
Six stages. At each one: what happens, what you get, who owns what, and the part that usually goes wrong. No adjectives required.
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Who is this for, and what usually sets it off?
Finance teams at growing companies where the close, the forecast, the budget or the board pack depends on one person or one spreadsheet. It usually surfaces after a trigger: an acquisition, a new lender or covenant test, a new CFO, or a board asking for more. Those four came up most often in 55 buyer conversations.
An acquisition adds an entity
Every new entity makes a spreadsheet close worse, and not in a straight line.
12 of 55 buyer companiesA lender adds a covenant test
The file goes to the bank every month, on a date you don't control.
11 of 55 buyer companiesA new CFO or finance leader arrives
The first person to ask, out loud, why the process works this way.
8 of 55 buyer companiesA board, sponsor or investor wants more
More often, more detail, and less patience for a number that moves without an explanation.
6 of 55 buyer companiesBudget season starts from last year's file
Five versions of the template, emailed between department heads.
The ERP or source system changes
Every export and mapping built on the old one breaks at once.
The person who owns the file gives notice
Nobody else knows where the numbers live, or which tab not to touch.
The forecast is stale before the meeting
By the time it's built, the month it was built for is over.
Almost every finance team we work with arrives after one of these. The counts are from 55 buyer companies quoted in our sales conversations.
If none of these sound familiar, the rest of this page describes someone else's problem. That's fine. Come back when one does.
What does the problem look like from the inside?
One person holds the numbers together. They stitch entity exports by hand, own the eliminations, rebuild the forecast instead of updating it, and assemble the file that goes to the bank or the board. It works until that person is out, leaves, or simply runs out of hours in the week.
One person stitches the entity exports together, maps them by hand, and is the only one who understands the eliminations. The close runs on their memory.
The budget is a collection of versions. The headcount plan lives in another sheet. The forecast gets rebuilt rather than updated, so it's stale before anyone reads it.
And the file that goes to the bank or the board is only as good as the one person who assembles it, on the one night they have to do it.
What are the six stages?
A fit call, a readiness check, a working foundation on your own numbers in five business days, your first real close or forecast run through it, tailoring over the following weeks, and a handover with training and a 30-day warranty. Each stage below has what happens, what you get, what usually goes wrong, and who owns what.
Stage 1 of 6
The fit call
- What happens
- A 30-minute call. We look at your entities, your systems, your reporting obligations and who owns the numbers today. We tell you plainly if we're not the right fit.
- What you get
- A straight answer. If it fits, a readiness list: the data, access and decisions we'll need before any clock starts.
- What usually goes wrong
- The call happens without the person who actually builds the file. The real complexity, like the one intercompany account nobody mentions, shows up three weeks later.
- Who owns what
- You bring whoever builds the file, usually the controller or the FP&A lead. We bring someone who has done this build before.
Stage 2 of 6
Readiness
- What happens
- We collect everything the build needs in a structured, tested form: trial balances, chart of accounts, entity list, HR data, and access to the ERP. The delivery clock doesn't start until readiness is confirmed.
- What you get
- A readiness sign-off and a fixed start date.
- What usually goes wrong
- Access. The ERP admin is busy, the HR export needs sign-off from someone on holiday, and a week disappears before anything is built.
- Who owns what
- You own access and exports. We own the checklist, the testing, and chasing the gaps.
Stage 3 of 6
The foundation
- What happens
- In five business days we build a working foundation on your own numbers: integrated actuals, core statements (profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow), and planning models started from a structure we've already shipped.
- What you get
- A working system on your data, not a slide about one. Reporting and planning models you can open and use.
- What usually goes wrong
- Mapping the chart of accounts surfaces decisions nobody made. Which entity carries shared costs? What counts as intercompany? Each one waits on an answer.
- Who owns what
- We build. You answer mapping questions fast, ideally the same day.
Where this matters most: Consolidation and group reporting, Reconciliation and the close
Stage 4 of 6
The first real cycle
- What happens
- Your next month-end or forecast runs through the new system, on real work, with us beside you. Differences from the old process get found and explained.
- What you get
- A first close or forecast out of the new system, reconciled to what you'd have produced the old way.
- What usually goes wrong
- Running old and new side by side feels like double work, and teams quietly stop halfway. The parallel run is the point. It's how you learn to trust the new numbers.
- Who owns what
- You run the cycle. We sit next to you and fix what breaks.
Where this matters most: Reconciliation and the close, Covenant and lender reporting
Stage 5 of 6
Tailoring and adoption
- What happens
- Over the following weeks, in structured working sessions, we layer in the real drivers, scenarios, headcount and compensation, and the reports your board and lenders actually read.
- What you get
- Templates your team can change themselves, and a forecast that takes new actuals without being rebuilt.
- What usually goes wrong
- Scope creep. Once one department sees its report, every department wants one, and the priorities blur.
- Who owns what
- You set the priorities. We build and coach.
Where this matters most: Budgeting and the people plan, Forecasting and scenarios, Board and investor reporting
Stage 6 of 6
Handover
- What happens
- Training for the people who'll run it, written procedures, and a 30-day warranty on what we built once the system is stable.
- What you get
- A finance team that can add an entity, change a template or rerun a forecast without calling us.
- What usually goes wrong
- Handover goes to one person, and you've rebuilt the original problem inside a better system.
- Who owns what
- You name the people who'll own it. We train them until they don't need us.
Can we see it work on our own numbers first?
On every engagement, a controller can see the process work on a slice of their own data before trusting something as sensitive as the close or the covenant file to a new partner. It stands on its own, before anything is signed.
What makes it slower?
Mostly things on the client side, and most of them are predictable: data access that waits on someone outside finance, mapping decisions that sit for days, one person running this month's close and the project at once, and a parallel run that gets skipped. Here's the full list, so none of it is a surprise.
- Data access that waits on someone outside finance.
- Mapping decisions that sit for days instead of hours.
- One person on your side who is also running this month's close.
- A source system that is mid-migration while we build on it.
- New reports added halfway through without dropping anything else.
- A parallel run that gets skipped, so trust in the new numbers never builds.
What it looked like for them
Monthly financial statements went from 3 to 5 days of evenings and weekends to about 20 minutes, ready the day the books close.
“Last year, we worked with Charlie and MCC to automate our IFRS financial statements and monthly reporting in Vena. Previously, generating statements took 3-5 days with late nights and weekends. Now, it runs in under 20 minutes - saving time, reducing errors, and ensuring consistency. We also automated our reporting package, allowing earlier insights and better review before close. Charlie and his team supported us every step of the way.”
Sarah Delehanty
Controller, Touch Bistro
A short timeline, and a handover SOP with screenshots at the end
“The implementation process with MCC was a wonderful experience. Their patience, expertise, and training methods ensured not only that we would get up and running, but that I would have the tools to understand and maintain the new system. We had a short timeline, but I never felt rushed. At the end of the project, the team handed over a detailed SOP with screenshots — which I had not been expecting, but was delighted to receive. I cannot recommend MCC highly enough!”
Daeman Di Stefano
Director of Finance, Park Avenue Synagogue
Reporting, planning and non-financial metrics in one model
“MCC did a fantastic job working with us on our unique requirements, our reporting requirements and our planning requirements. They were also able to help us pull in data that was non financial, that's going to help us track metrics that are important to our company and how we work. Very customizable, couldn't be happier.”
Christina Keel
CFO, Earth Systems
Where does Vena fit?
Late, and as the instrument. We build in Vena, a planning platform that works inside Excel, because adoption is where most planning projects fail and Excel is the one tool a finance team never needs training on. The method on this page is ours. Vena is what it runs on.
We build in Vena, a planning platform that works inside Excel. Your team keeps the tool it already knows, and the data, workflow and version history are governed underneath.
We chose it because adoption is where most planning projects fail, and Excel is the one tool nobody on a finance team needs training on. Vena named MCC its International Partner of the Year for 2025.
Questions people ask before booking
Will we depend on you forever?
No. Handover is a stage, not an afterthought: training, written procedures, and a 30-day warranty once the system is stable. The goal is a team that can add an entity or change a template without calling us. If you want us around later, that's a choice, not a lock-in.
What does a partner add that the software company doesn't?
The finance side. The software is the instrument. We work out how your entities, eliminations, headcount plan and covenant tests actually need to behave, and build it with people who have run a close themselves. Then we stay through the first real cycle, which is where most projects wobble.
How long does it take?
The foundation takes five business days once readiness is confirmed. The first real cycle follows with your next month-end or forecast. Tailoring runs over the weeks after that. The honest variable is readiness: data access and decision speed on your side decide most of the timeline.
What if it doesn't work out?
Most bad fits are caught on the fit call or at readiness, before anything is built. The five-day foundation carries a delivery guarantee (miss it and 40% of the foundation fee comes back), and there's a 30-day warranty after adoption. We only guarantee what we control, which is why readiness comes first.
Do we have to stop using Excel?
No. The platform we use works inside Excel, so your team keeps the tool it knows. What changes is underneath: one governed model instead of files emailed around.
Will this make us ready for AI?
It makes your data ready, which is the part AI depends on: consolidated actuals, one mapping to your chart of accounts, agreed definitions and a clean history in one governed model. Only 17% of organizations have high-quality, AI-ready data, according to the FP&A Trends Survey 2025. The AI features come from your platform. We build what they read from.
Most firms won't tell you where their own process is likely to slow down. We just did, six times.
Is this a fit?
This fits if
- There's a controller or a named owner of the numbers on your side.
- At least one of the eight triggers above describes your year.
- Your team can make decisions quickly during setup.
- You're open to starting from a proven structure and tailoring it.
This isn't for you if
- Nobody on your side owns the numbers, and nobody will.
- You need a fully custom design signed off before you see anything working.
- You're looking for someone to run your finance function for you.
- None of the triggers above apply this year.
See whether this fits your team
A 30-minute call. Bring whoever builds the file. You'll leave knowing whether we're a fit, which problem is really yours, and what the first five days would build.
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