Case study
High-growth national franchise: FP&A through 4x scale
Grew its location count roughly fourfold during the engagement
- Function
- FP&A buildout / Forecasting & planning rigor / Unit economics framework
- Context
- Multi-unit franchise / Hypergrowth scale-up
- Engagement
- Multi-year
- Board-reported
The challenge
Where it started.
Hypergrowth was outrunning the financial infrastructure. The FP&A function did not yet exist at the scale the business required. Executives and ownership needed weekly visibility into unit-level economics to guide capital allocation, and what existed was too slow, too manual, and too inconsistent to inform decisions at the pace of a 4x growth trajectory. Operations needed labor and pricing tools that aligned with financial targets. Without these, scale would erode margin rather than build it.
How the work unfolded
Unit-level reporting stood up
Weekly P&L and labor dashboards built for operator use, with consistent numbers across the system
Rolling forecast model introduced
Capital allocation decisions given a financial basis rather than operating on instinct
Finance as operating partner
Pricing, labor, and promotional strategy developed jointly with Operations, Marketing, and Supply Chain
EBITDA consistency through 4x growth
Roughly fourfold location growth. Financial discipline running alongside the scale-up, not behind it
The approach
How the work was done.
The FP&A function was built from scratch while the business was already in motion. There was no pause button. Dashboards and models had to be stood up while the team was also running the week-to-week numbers for a business growing faster than its infrastructure.
Weekly unit-level P&L and labor dashboards were the first priority, because without that visibility, every other planning conversation was happening without a shared baseline. The reporting was built to be used by operators, not just read by Finance. That meant simple, consistent, and fast enough to inform decisions before the window closed.
Rolling forecast models and scenario analysis were introduced alongside the reporting. The goal was to give executives and ownership a financial basis for the capital allocation decisions they were already making on instinct. That shift, from instinct to informed, is what holds EBITDA together through a 4x growth trajectory.
Finance operated as a partner to Operations, Marketing, and Supply Chain rather than as a downstream reporter. Pricing, labor, and promotional strategies were developed jointly and tested against the financial model before they went into the field.
At 4x growth, financial discipline is not overhead. It is the thing that keeps the growth from eating itself.
The outcome
What changed.
The FP&A team was built and reporting infrastructure stood up alongside it. Weekly unit-level P&L and labor dashboards gave the franchise system visibility it had not had before. Rolling forecast models and scenario analysis gave executives and ownership a basis for capital allocation decisions that held up through the highest-growth years. Pricing, labor, and promotional strategies were developed in close partnership with Operations, Marketing, and Supply Chain, with Finance as a partner to the business rather than a reporter of its results. EBITDA consistency improved through the scale-up rather than collapsing under it.
- Scale
- ≈4x
- Roughly fourfold location growth, with FP&A built and held together through the scale-up
- Visibility
- Weekly unit P&L
- Dashboards used system-wide to improve margin visibility at the operator level
- Result
- EBITDA consistent
- Financial discipline running alongside the growth, not behind it
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:
- Fractional CFO for multi-unit operatorsCapital allocation, unit-level FP&A, and board reporting. CFO leadership scaled to what the business actually needs.
- Finance infrastructure for multi-location growthClose, controls, ERP, and data foundations built so the numbers hold up through the next stage of growth.
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