The questions clients ask before they engage us

Startups and growth-stage companies, established SMEs, enterprise finance teams, and investors or lenders. Engagements range from a single valuation or feasibility study to a continuing virtual CFO relationship. What clients have in common is a decision that requires finance work to a standard that will survive review by an investor, lender, auditor or regulator.

With a scoping conversation of 30 to 45 minutes covering the decision behind your request, your systems, your reporting calendar and who else is involved. You then receive a written scope note setting out deliverables, information requirements, timelines, review points and exclusions. Work starts once that scope is accepted and confidentiality terms are in place.

An assigned delivery pod with a named engagement lead, one or more preparers and an independent reviewer. The lead owns the relationship and the technical judgement. The reviewer signs off before any deliverable reaches you. Pod composition is disclosed at kickoff and you are told when it changes.

Yes, where the scope is standard and well understood, such as a defined reconciliation programme or a valuation for a known purpose. You purchase the service and move straight to onboarding. Engagements whose shape depends on your circumstances, including diligence, forensic reviews, feasibility studies and transformation work, are scoped in a conversation first.

Usually not. We do not issue statutory audit opinions or sign filings requiring a licensed signatory, so your statutory auditor and tax signatory remain in place. We commonly work alongside them, and on many engagements our output is what they rely on. Where your existing practice can do the work well, we will say so.

It depends on pod availability and the size of the engagement. Onboarding itself, covering system access, chart of accounts review, document exchange setup and the first data request list, is typically the gating item rather than our availability. Ask during scoping and we will give you a date rather than an estimate. 3 to 5 business days

A single point of contact with authority to answer questions, timely responses to data request lists, and system access at the permission level agreed. Most delays in finance engagements are caused by information pending on the client side, so we track outstanding items visibly and flag them before they affect a delivery date.

Yes, subject to the notice terms in your engagement letter. On exit we return your records and hand over working documents such as the chart of accounts, close checklist, approval matrix and reporting templates, so the function is portable to an in-house team or another provider. 30 days for retainers and 15 days for fixed-scope projects

Pricing depends on the service, the scope and the volume of work involved. Continuous services such as finance operations are normally priced on a recurring basis against an agreed volume and scope; event-driven work such as valuation, diligence or feasibility is normally priced against defined deliverables. Specific fees are confirmed in writing before work begins. Every engagement is priced as a fixed fee against a defined scope, with indicative fees published on each service page.

Because the same service name can describe very different amounts of work. A reconciliation programme at 500 transactions a month and one at 50,000 are not comparable, and quoting a single figure for both would mislead one of them. Where a scope can be standardised, it is priced directly on the service page.

Ask during scoping. Some services are viable as a one-off piece of work while others only make sense with a continuing cadence. If your requirement is smaller than what we can deliver economically, we will tell you and suggest an alternative rather than accept an engagement neither side will be satisfied with. We do not apply a minimum engagement size.

A change in scope is documented and agreed before the additional work is performed, including its effect on timelines and fees. We do not perform out-of-scope work silently and invoice for it afterwards, and we do not absorb material additional work without telling you it is happening.

No. The scoping conversation is how both sides establish whether there is a fit, and it is not billed. Where scoping requires substantive analysis of your records rather than a discussion, that becomes a defined diagnostic engagement and is scoped and priced as one.

Third-party costs such as database subscriptions, data purchases, filing fees or travel, where an engagement requires them, are identified in the scope note and recharged at cost. Where a cost cannot be estimated at scoping, the scope note states that it will be agreed with you before being incurred.

That is a common and sensible path. Many continuing relationships begin as a single diagnostic, reconciliation exercise or reporting redesign, and expand once both sides understand the working relationship. Expansion is handled as a new or amended scope rather than a quiet increase in effort.

Four things: an assigned engagement pod rather than a rotating queue, a secure access-controlled document exchange rather than email attachments, work performed inside cloud accounting and reporting systems, and a written delivery calendar with scheduled review calls. It is an operating model with defined controls, not simply working from a distance.

Pods on international engagements are staffed to hold an overlap window with the client's working hours, agreed at kickoff and recorded in the scope. The aim is that a query raised in your morning is answered within your working day rather than a cycle later. GCC 11:00–19:30 IST, United Kingdom 13:30–18:30 IST, United States (Eastern) 18:30–21:30 IST, Singapore 09:30–16:00 IST and Australia 09:30–14:30 IST

Yes, that is the point of the pod structure. Continuity of the engagement lead and preparers is deliberate, because most of the value in a continuing engagement is accumulated knowledge of your business. When a change is necessary, you are told in advance and handover is documented rather than verbal.

Yours, wherever possible. We work inside cloud ledgers, receivables and payables workflow tools, expense and payroll platforms and the reporting layer above them. Where a client has no stack, we recommend one sized to transaction volume and reporting obligations rather than to a vendor preference. Zoho Books, QuickBooks, Tally and SAP, with other platforms supported where an engagement requires it

Through an agreed channel set at kickoff, with data requests, open items and deliverables tracked in writing so that nothing depends on recall. Standing check-ins are scheduled at a frequency matched to the engagement, weekly for active delivery and monthly for steady-state operations.

You should be able to. Documentation is produced with that possibility in mind: chart of accounts, close checklist, approval matrix, reconciliation formats and reporting templates are yours and are handed over on exit. A finance function that cannot be transferred is a dependency, and we do not build engagements to create one.

It can be arranged, and for some engagements such as inventory observation support or an onsite forensic review it may be necessary. It is scoped and agreed in advance, including any associated cost. For most engagements the work is delivered entirely remotely.

Client records move through access-controlled repositories with permissions granted per engagement and per person. Documents are not exchanged through personal mailboxes or consumer messaging apps. Access lists are reviewed when people join or leave a pod. Handling arrangements are set out in the engagement terms before the first file is transferred. Zoho Books, QuickBooks, Tally and SAP, with other platforms supported where an engagement requires it. Client records are held in access-controlled cloud workspaces; we do not currently hold a third-party security certification

Yes. We will sign yours or provide ours, and we can put confidentiality terms in place before you describe your situation in detail. For transaction and forensic enquiries that is the normal sequence rather than an exception.

Only the assigned pod and the reviewer for your engagement, on a need-to-know basis. Forensic and transaction engagements are ring-fenced, which means access is restricted more tightly still and is not visible to colleagues working on other engagements for the same client group.

Conflict checks are performed at scoping, before an engagement is accepted. Where a potential conflict exists, we either decline the engagement or disclose it and put information barriers in place with the consent of both parties. We will not accept work that compromises an existing client's position.

Records are returned or made available for retrieval, and access permissions are revoked as part of engagement closure. Retention of working papers for a defined period is normal professional practice and the applicable period is stated in the engagement terms. Working papers are retained for 8 years from the close of an engagement, and client access to the secure workspace remains open for 30 days after completion.

Engagements are structured around purpose limitation, restricted access and documented handling. Where personal data is involved, obligations under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 or, for relevant international clients, frameworks such as the GDPR may apply to the arrangement. Confirm the specific position for your engagement with us in writing. We process personal data as a Data Fiduciary under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and will enter into a data processing agreement where a client's own compliance position requires one.

With restricted access from the outset, a limited team, and coordination with your counsel where privilege is relevant. Documentation is prepared to a standard intended to withstand scrutiny in a disciplinary or legal process, with source references for every finding. We do not discuss forensic engagements outside the assigned team.

Invoicing follows the arrangement recorded in your engagement terms, typically on a recurring cycle for continuous services and against milestones or completion for event-driven work. Invoices reference the agreed scope so that what is being billed is identifiable. Online purchases are payable in advance. Retainers are invoiced monthly in advance, and separately invoiced engagements are payable within 15 days.

Advisory, accounting and consultancy work supplied in India is generally treated as a taxable supply of services under Indian GST law, and applicable GST would be charged on the invoice at the rate in force at the time of supply. The correct treatment depends on the nature of the supply, the place of supply and the status of the recipient. Confirm the position for your specific engagement with us in writing before you rely on it.

A tax invoice issued by a registered supplier carries the supplier's GSTIN along with the other particulars required by the GST invoicing rules, including the recipient's GSTIN where the recipient is registered. Please share your registration details at onboarding so invoices are issued correctly from the first billing cycle. 07AATCA2923N1Z6, registered in Delhi

Eligibility for input tax credit depends on your own registration status, the use of the services in your business, and the conditions in the GST law, including the invoice appearing correctly in your auto-populated returns. We issue invoices with the required particulars and report supplies as the law requires. Whether credit is available to you is a question for your tax adviser.

Where services are supplied to a recipient outside India and the conditions in the GST law for treating a supply as an export of services are satisfied, the supply may qualify as a zero-rated supply. Those conditions include the location of the supplier and recipient, the place of supply, receipt of payment in convertible foreign exchange or permitted Indian rupees, and the parties not being merely establishments of the same person. The treatment applied to your engagement is confirmed with you in writing before invoicing begins.

Under Indian GST law a supplier making zero-rated supplies may export services without payment of integrated tax by furnishing a Letter of Undertaking, or alternatively may pay integrated tax and claim a refund. Which route applies determines whether tax appears on your invoice. We will tell you which basis is being used for your engagement and issue documentation accordingly. Exports of service are invoiced in accordance with the applicable GST provisions for export of services.

Indian resident clients are generally required to consider tax deduction at source on professional fees under the Income-tax Act, and international clients may have withholding obligations in their own jurisdiction, potentially affected by an applicable double taxation avoidance agreement. Deduction is your obligation to assess. Share the deduction position at onboarding so that invoices and remittances reconcile cleanly.

Indian engagements are normally invoiced and settled in Indian rupees. International engagements may be invoiced in a foreign currency, with receipts routed through the banking channel required for export of services documentation under FEMA. Confirm accepted currencies and banking details with us at onboarding rather than relying on any figure quoted informally. All fees are quoted and charged in Indian rupees. Domestic payments are accepted through the payment methods offered at checkout, and international clients may pay by card. Bank remittance details are provided on the invoice.