Case study
PE-backed multi-brand platform: close transformation and audit remediation
Multi-brand portfolio assembled through acquisition, operating across many locations
- Function
- Close transformation / Control environment / Team building
- Context
- PE-backed / Multi-unit franchise
- Engagement
- Multi-year
- PE-sponsor
- Board-reported
The challenge
Where it started.
The platform had been built by acquisition. Each company that came into the portfolio brought its own close calendar, its own chart of accounts, and its own control environment, none of which were designed to consolidate into a single accurate monthly read. The close ran nearly a month behind. Material weaknesses in the control environment were a standing item in audit findings. Finance was spending most of its time closing books rather than informing decisions. The board and sponsor had no clean, timely line of sight into how the business was performing, and the audit history was the kind that follows a company into every capital conversation it tries to have.
The transformation
Monthly close timeline
Audit findings
Before
Material weaknesses
Remediation
Controls rebuilt
After
Consecutive clean audits
The approach
How the work was done.
The work started with an honest diagnostic of the close process across all acquired entities: not what it was supposed to be, but what it actually was. Where the bottlenecks were. Which reconciliations were manual and redundant. Which control gaps were driving audit findings. Where the headcount was going and what it was producing.
The redesign ran in parallel with building the Controller function. The right hire in that seat was the foundation everything else rested on. Standards, accountability, and a close calendar the team could own. None of that holds without a strong operator running it day to day.
The control environment was rebuilt entity by entity, in close collaboration with the external auditor throughout the remediation. Not managing the auditors but earning the outcome by making the underlying work right. Chart of accounts alignment was driven across the portfolio. Reconciliations were standardized. The audit findings were treated as a scorecard, not a negotiation.
Headcount efficiency came from the process redesign, not from cutting people. When the manual work was removed, the team that remained could do more with less friction. That freed capacity for analysis, the work that actually informs the decisions a PE-backed CFO is paid to improve.
The close did not get faster because we cut corners. It got faster because we made it right.
The outcome
What changed.
The monthly close went from weeks to days. The original mandate had been to professionalize the function and add headcount as the company scaled; the work did the opposite. The finance team got materially leaner through process redesign and automation, even as revenue grew, with the recovered capacity reinvested in analysis rather than manual reconciliation. The outside consultants brought in to cover overflow the internal team could not reach were phased out entirely as the in-house function absorbed the work. The toolchain carried the load: close management and reconciliation software, AI-assisted accounts payable on the ERP, and automated duplicate-payment detection. A strong Controller function was built from scratch and owns the process with confidence. Consecutive clean audits closed out a history of material weaknesses. The finance team now spends the time it recovered informing decisions rather than chasing them.
- Close cycle
- Weeks → days
- Monthly close compressed through process redesign, not by cutting corners
- Audit record
- Clean audits
- Consecutive clean audits, prior material weaknesses eliminated
- Outcome
- Team that owns it
- Controller function built from scratch; the process holds without the CFO in the room
Where this work fits
Part of a broader practice.
This engagement is part of a broader practice. If this is the kind of problem you have, start here:
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