The First 90 Days | Praxis Profit

The problem, in one month

Profit is not cash. The distance between them is where owners get caught.

Same business · Same month Two very different stories

What the P&L reports

$47,200

Net profit for the month. On paper, a good month.

What's actually in the account

$8,340

After the loan payment, inventory, and invoices nobody has collected yet.

Where the difference went

Net profit reported$47,200
Loan principal & interest− $18,000
Inventory and materials bought− $12,000
Invoiced but not yet collected− $8,860
Cash actually available$8,340

The gap is the whole problem. None of that is an accounting error. It's timing, and nobody is watching it.

Illustrative figures, shown to make the pattern concrete.

The first two years

You know the operation. The numbers are the part nobody handed over.

The seller ran this business for twenty years and kept half of it in their head. You inherited books built for their tax return, not for your decisions. And there's a loan payment due every month whether the reporting is ready or not.

The P&L says the year looks fine. The bank account says otherwise.
You're moving money between accounts to cover payroll and vendor bills.
You can't tell which jobs, customers, or product lines actually make money.
A debt payment is due every month regardless of what the books say.
Your lender wants reporting nobody has set up.
Your reports tell you what already happened, not what to do next.

What the engagement covers

Built for the questions an owner has to answer, not the ones an accountant files.

I'm not your bookkeeper and I'm not your tax preparer. Those roles record and report what already happened. This is about what the numbers mean and what you do next.

Cash flow visibility

A forward-looking view of what's coming in, what's going out, and where pressure builds, before it becomes urgent.

Margin where it's earned

Profitability by job, customer, route, location, or product line. Which work funds the business and which work quietly strains it.

Debt service planning

Coverage tracked against your loan so surprises don't arrive the week a payment is due, and covenant conversations never catch you cold.

Lender-ready reporting

The reporting package a bank expects from a borrower, prepared before they ask for it. I spent fifteen years on the receiving end of these.

Working capital control

Receivables, payables, inventory, and billing timing, the levers that decide whether growth funds itself or drains you.

Decision support

A standing monthly conversation about pricing, hiring, capex, and whether to borrow, grounded in what your numbers actually say.

Who this fits

If it has revenue, payroll, and a loan payment, the questions are the same.

The industry matters less than the stage. I work with owners in roughly the first two years after an acquisition, on businesses between about $1M and $10M in revenue, the point where the operation is real, the debt is real, and the reporting hasn't caught up yet.

Home & commercial servicesManufacturingDistribution & wholesaleLogistics & transportationHealthcare servicesProfessional practicesTrades & contractingFacilities & property servicesE-commerceConsumer services

Probably not a fit if

You need bookkeeping or tax preparation. Clean books are the prerequisite for this work, not the deliverable, if that isn't in place yet, that's the first conversation.

You're pre-revenue or still searching for a business to buy. If you're evaluating a deal, there's a different service below.

You want someone to run the finance function day to day. This is advisory. You still run the business.

The first 90 days

What you should be able to answer in the first 90 days.

Where is cash actually going?

Not what the P&L says you earned. Where the money physically moves, and how long it sits before it comes back.

Which customers, jobs, products, routes, or locations are really profitable?

Many acquired businesses inherit at least some work that produces less margin than expected, without reporting that makes it easy to see which.

Can the business safely carry its debt service?

Coverage run honestly, on what the business actually generates, minus what you need to live on.

What reporting will the lender expect before they ask for it?

Building it now is a project. Building it the week they ask is a scramble.

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Engagements

Straightforward pricing, scoped to the business.

$2,500 / month to start

Scoped to business complexity. Most engagements run month to month with no long-term contract, you should stay because it's working, not because you're locked in.

For context, that's a fraction of a single month's debt service on most acquisition loans, and considerably less than what an unnoticed margin problem costs over a year.

Book a 20-minute call

Common questions

Straight answers.

How is this different from the work my accountant or bookkeeper does?

Bookkeepers and accountants can provide valuable reporting and advisory support, but their core work is different from this engagement. Praxis Profit focuses specifically on interpreting business performance for the decisions in front of you, including cash visibility, margin, debt service, and forward-looking reporting.

This work sits alongside good bookkeeping and accounting, not instead of it.

I just closed and I'm underwater in operations. Is it too early?

Usually the opposite. The first year is when the decisions are largest and the information is worst. You're setting pricing, deciding who stays, figuring out which work to chase, with books you inherited from someone whose priorities were different from yours.

That said, if the books are genuinely a mess, the honest first step may be getting bookkeeping straightened out. I'll tell you that on the call rather than sell you something that won't work yet.

How much of my time does this take?

Typically one working session a month, plus access in between when something comes up. Most of the work happens on my side. The point is to give you back decision time, not add a standing meeting you dread.

My lender hasn't asked for anything. Do I need reporting?

Not yet. But acquisition loans carry reporting requirements and, often, covenants, and the first time most owners hear about them is when something has already slipped. Having the package ready before it's requested changes that conversation entirely.

What actually happens on the call?

You tell me what you bought, what you can't see, and what's worrying you. I'll tell you honestly whether I can help, what I'd look at first, and what it would cost. If it's not a fit, I'll say so and point you somewhere better. Twenty minutes, no charge, no follow-up sequence.

You bought the business. Now you need to see inside the numbers.