Chapter 6 — Financial and Corporate
What this segment is for
The Financials segment of the Strategy Map covers the work that makes a company financially legible to itself and to outside parties (auditors, banks, acquirers, investors). The point is not bookkeeping. The point is to make the company decision-ready at any point.
KPI reporting
The chapter argues that a small set of KPIs — Felix lists revenue, gross margin, utilisation, recovery, pipeline weighted value, headcount, CSS, retention — should be reported on the same day every month, in the same format, alongside the management accounts. KPI reports are a Process task that produces a monthly artefact for the Financials segment to act on.
Management accounts and cash
Monthly management accounts, produced within two weeks of month-end, are the basic operational discipline. Below the management accounts sits cash: a 13-week rolling cash forecast is the standard tool. The chapter is direct that a founder who cannot describe the company's cash position from memory is a risk to the company.
Corporate hygiene
The "corporate" half of the segment covers the work nobody loves until they need it:
- Up-to-date statutory accounts.
- Cap table and share-class hygiene.
- Shareholder agreements and option schemes.
- IP assignment and supplier contracts.
- Insurance (and yes, the risk register — see Chapter 7).
The acquirer-readiness argument: every uncleaned-up corporate item becomes a discount factor at sale. The Roadmap should contain Corporate tasks that systematically eliminate discount factors over the two years of the programme.
The Financials → everywhere link
Financials tasks tend to be enabling tasks. Timesheets enable utilisation reporting (Customers + Process). Management accounts enable bonus schemes (People). Pipeline reporting enables hiring plans (People). Felix's advice is that the Financials Roadmap tasks should be sequenced early because they unblock everything else.