Manufacturing & Distribution
Fractional CFO and accounting services for manufacturing and distribution businesses. Inventory accounting, COGS analysis, job costing, ERP optimization.
Manufacturing and Distribution Accounting Is Operational. Your Finance Team Has to Be Too.
Inventory valuation, cost of goods, landed costs, production variances, freight, and the cash conversion cycle — manufacturing and distribution businesses run on operational accounting that most generalist CFOs aren't equipped to manage. We've built accounting and finance functions inside these businesses. We know how they work.
Whether you're a manufacturer managing raw materials and work-in-process, a distributor managing inventory turns and supplier terms, or both — the accounting and finance challenges are real, specific, and consequential. Getting them wrong shows up in margin, in cash flow, and eventually in the ability to fund the next stage of growth.
We build accounting and finance infrastructure that reflects how your operation actually runs — not a generic model applied to your business from the outside.
Where We Focus
The Accounting and Finance Issues That Define Manufacturing and Distribution.
Inventory Valuation & Costing
FIFO, LIFO, weighted average — the inventory costing method you use has a direct impact on your reported margins and tax position. More importantly, if your inventory isn't valued accurately, your gross margin isn't either. We build and validate the costing methodology that gives leadership an accurate picture of what it costs to make and move what you sell.
Cost of Goods & Production Variance
Standard costing, actual costing, production variances — the accounting behind what it costs to manufacture a product is complex and consequential. When it's done well, you know your true margins by product and by production run. When it's done poorly, you're pricing on guesswork and finding out about margin problems after it's too late to fix them.
Cash Conversion Cycle
Days inventory outstanding, days sales outstanding, days payable outstanding — the cash conversion cycle is the single most important operating metric in a manufacturing or distribution business. We build the reporting and forecasting around it so leadership understands the cash implications of inventory decisions, customer payment terms, and supplier negotiations before they make them.
Supplier Terms & Working Capital
The gap between when you pay suppliers and when customers pay you is your working capital requirement. In manufacturing and distribution, that gap can be significant — and managing it poorly means the business is constantly funding operations with cash it doesn't have. We model working capital requirements and help leadership negotiate the supplier and customer terms that keep the business liquid.
Customer & SKU Profitability
Not all customers and not all products contribute equally to the bottom line. In manufacturing and distribution, the cost to serve a customer — freight, handling, order complexity, return rates — can vary dramatically. We build the profitability analysis that shows leadership which customers and which SKUs are actually generating margin, and which ones are subsidized by the rest of the business.
CapEx & Equipment Finance
Manufacturing businesses make significant capital investments — equipment, facilities, tooling. Getting the financing structure right, understanding the depreciation impact, and modeling the return on capital are finance decisions with long-term consequences. We bring the analytical rigor to capital allocation decisions that keeps the business investing wisely rather than reactively.
Start Here
Know Where Your Accounting and Finance Function Actually Stands.
The Financial Discovery Assessment™ finds what your accounting and finance function is costing you, puts a dollar value on it, and tells you what to do about it — built around how your operation actually works.
Work With Us
Let's Talk About Your Operation.
Tell us about your business — what you make or move, the size of the operation, and what's driving you to look at accounting and finance now. We'll tell you honestly what we think.
Schedule a Discovery Call
How can we help? No pitch, no pressure — just a real conversation.