Retail Interim CFO & Finance Transformation
Multi-site retail business — £15m turnover — 12 locations across the Midlands and North West
The Situation
A growing multi-site retail business operating 12 stores across the Midlands and North West had reached £15m in turnover — but its finance function had not kept pace. The business had no Finance Director and no CFO. Financial reporting was handled by a small, hard-working accounts team producing statutory-grade numbers, but the board had no management accounts, no cash flow forecasting, and no visibility over margin performance by site.
The owner-manager had built the business through strong commercial instincts and deep knowledge of the product range. But as the estate had grown, the gap between what the board could see and what it needed to see had become a serious constraint. Expansion decisions were being made without reliable data on which sites were genuinely profitable. Cash was managed reactively, and the existing invoice finance facility was approaching its limit without a clear picture of what would replace it.
A refinancing was needed, but no lender would proceed without a credible set of management accounts and a properly constructed financial forecast. The business needed senior finance leadership — but a full-time CFO hire was neither affordable nor necessary at this stage of its development.
Our Approach
Taiga placed a fractional CFO into the business on a three-day-per-week basis, working directly with the owner and the existing accounts team to build the financial infrastructure the business needed.
The engagement had three core workstreams, delivered in parallel:
- Management reporting: We designed and implemented a monthly management reporting pack that gave the board, for the first time, a clear view of revenue, gross margin, and contribution by site. The pack included a simple but effective KPI dashboard covering footfall conversion, average transaction value, and stock turn — the metrics that matter most in multi-site retail.
- Cash flow forecasting: We built a 13-week rolling cash flow forecast and a 12-month forward model that integrated with the management accounts. This gave the owner real-time visibility over the cash position and, critically, produced the outputs a lender would need to assess a new facility.
- Refinancing support: With credible financials in place, we led the process to secure a new asset-based lending (ABL) facility. We prepared the information pack, managed the lender selection process, and supported the business through due diligence and documentation to completion.
Alongside the formal workstreams, the fractional CFO attended monthly board meetings, provided ad hoc commercial analysis to support decision-making on lease renewals and new site evaluations, and coached the accounts team to maintain the new reporting independently.
The Outcome
The business secured a new £2m ABL facility on competitive terms, replacing the previous invoice finance arrangement and providing the headroom needed to support both ongoing operations and planned expansion. The lender cited the quality of the financial reporting as a key factor in its decision to proceed.
More importantly, the board now operates with genuine visibility over its business. Monthly management accounts are produced within 10 working days of period end, margin by site is reviewed at every board meeting, and the cash flow forecast is updated weekly by the in-house team using the model we built. Two underperforming sites were identified and closed on the basis of the new data, improving group-level margin by 1.4 percentage points.
The fractional CFO engagement transitioned from three days per week to one day per month after six months — a planned step-down that reflected the capability we had built within the existing team. The business has the financial infrastructure of a much larger organisation, delivered at a fraction of the cost of a permanent hire.