FCCA
Mohammad Azam
Founder & CEO
Founded the practice and still reads client accounts himself. FCCA is the fellowship grade of the chartered certified qualification, which takes years of practice beyond the exams to hold.
For boutique marketing agencies
Know which clientspay you, and whichones you carry.
Fractional CFO, bookkeeping and tax, delivered by one team of qualified accountants. Built for agencies between $300K and $5M.
Monthly close
CLOSED 5 MAR
Net profit
$336,000
+2.1 pts against last quarter
Cash position, 13 weeks
W1W13
Margin by client
- Harbour & Co34%
- Meridian Group27%
- Lyle Studio19%
- Fenwick Retail12%
- Ardent Health(8%)
- Copperline(14%)
Problem and fix
What you're dealing with, and what changes
Most agency owners came up through creative, not finance.
| What your agency is dealing with | What changes with us |
|---|---|
| 01You can name your favourite clients. You can't name your most profitable. | A profit and loss by client, every month. You see which accounts earn and which ones the rest of the book carries. |
| 02Nobody tracks utilisation or effective hourly rate. | Both, monthly. The rate card says $150, and you find out what the account really earns per hour worked. |
| 03Scope creep surfaces at the quarterly review, four months late. | Costs tagged to client and project as they land, so an overrun shows up in week three. |
| 04Media spend runs through your account and inflates revenue. | Pass-through separated from fee income, so the top line is what the agency actually earns. |
| 05Clients pay on 60 days. Payroll runs on the 1st and the 15th. | A 13-week cash forecast updated weekly, and an AR process that pulls days to pay down. |
| 06You priced that retainer three years ago and never revisited it. | Repricing built on what delivery costs now, with the margin per retainer shown after. |
| 07The month closes on the 25th, so three weeks of quotes use stale numbers. | Books closed by the 5th. Every price you quote uses this month's cost base. |
| 08April takes a week of founder time, most of it hunting documents. | We hold the tax calendar and file off books that are already closed. |
( 01 )
Sixty days out. Fifteen days in.
The credit line covers the difference.
Money out
1st and 15th
Money in
Day 60
( 02 )
Eleven clients. Three you’re carrying.
You can name your favourites. Can you name these?
Hover any client to see why it sits where it does.
Carried, a year$29,640
The leak
Where it goes
None of it shows up as a line called loss.
- Retainer carried below cost$18,000
- Scope creep, six projects$39,600
- Contractor spend over budget$21,400
- Software nobody opens$9,200
- Interest covering the payment gap$7,800
- A year of it$96,000
Illustrative math for a $1.2M agency. Not a client result, and not a promise.
Two months apart
Uncategorised, or tagged and current
Before
LAST CLOSED 25 JAN
LineAmount
- STRIPE PAYOUT 447114,000
- TRANSFER REF 8821322,500
- BACS CREDIT 00718,000
- CONTRACTOR NO MEMO(6,400)
- CHQ DEP 990211,200
- ADOBE *SUBSCRIPTION(1,150)
Six weeks late, and not one line tells you which client it belongs to.
After
CLOSED 5 MAR
ClientAmount
- Harbour & Co14,000
- Meridian Group22,500
- Lyle Studio8,000
- Fenwick Retail(6,400)
- Ardent Health11,200
- Copperline(1,150)
Same money. Now you know which client earned it and which one spent it.
Three levers
What moves first
- 01
Profit by client
Which accounts earn, which ones you carry.
Month 1
When you find out
- 02
Books closed
By the 5th, not the 25th.
The 5th
When you can quote
- 03
April
One hour of review, not a lost week.
1 hour
What tax season costs
Your numbers
Move the sliders
$2,400,000
8
55
What that is worth
- Four points of margin
- $96,000
- Cash freed at 30 day terms
- $164,384
- Per billable head
- $12,000
Arithmetic on the figures you set. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Open the full calculatorWhat we do
One team, three jobs
- 01
Fractional CFO
Profit by client, a cash forecast you can staff against, and the call on what to reprice.
- 02
Bookkeeping
Books closed by the 5th and tagged by client, so every quote uses current costs.
- 03
Tax preparation
Filed off books that are already closed, so April costs you an hour instead of a week.
We work in your stack
- QuickBooks Online
- Xero
- Gusto
- ADP
- Ramp
- Fathom
- Syft
How this works
The CFO Growth System
Four stages. The first read lands in month one, not month four.
- 01
Read
Your last twelve months, gone through line by line.
- 02
Rebuild
Reporting rebuilt around client, project and service line.
- 03
Run
A weekly session on what moved and what it cost.
- 04
Decide
Pricing, hiring and cuts made on evidence, not instinct.
Our promise
A weekly session, and a CFO on the phone
Plus your CFO on the call before any decision over $10,000.
Why agencies choose us
Four reasons this lands differently
- 01
One team, one bill
The books, the return and the CFO read come from the same people. The person naming your unprofitable client is the one who produced the number.
- 02
Built for your size
This is designed around agencies from $300K, not scaled down from something written for a $50M business.
- 03
Chartered accountants
FCCA and ACCA credentials, and more than 25 combined years of practice behind them.
- 04
Profit by client in month one
It comes out of the twelve months you already have, so you are not waiting a quarter for the first useful answer.
Client case study
Stuck for a year, and it was never the effort.
Proof
In their words
If I were to describe Aprecity's team in one word: Efficient. Response is quick and insightful, and every advice they give is intentional and focused on what you could do next.
5 clients, in their words
5 named clients. No invented counts, no aggregate claims.
Who does the work
A named lead, not a queue
ACCA
Asad Riaz
Managing Partner & Fractional CFO
Runs the CFO engagements, from profitability by client through to investor-ready reporting for a raise. If you are repricing a retainer or sizing the next hire, this is the person on the call.
ACCA
Syed Faheem Basit
Fractional CFO & Business Analyst
Builds the models behind the pricing and hiring calls, and the reporting that makes them readable. Utilisation, effective hourly rate and the 13-week cash forecast come from here.
Those are the three who lead the practice. Behind them is the wider team that keeps books current, prepares returns and builds the reporting packs. What does not change is who owns your account. One of the three above leads it and answers when you ask why a number moved.
Who this is for
Different business, different number
Questions
Before you book
01What does a fractional CFO actually do for a marketing agency?
Works out the profit on each client, builds a cash forecast you can staff against, and prices work on what delivery really costs. It's the layer above bookkeeping, where the decisions get made. You get a qualified accountant who already knows what utilisation and effective hourly rate mean.
02How much does this cost, and how does it compare to hiring?
It starts from $997 a month. Where you land depends on transaction volume, how many entities you run, and whether you want CFO work alone or with the books underneath it. A full-time finance hire costs a senior salary plus benefits, and you would still need a bookkeeper.
03When is an agency too small for this?
Most fractional CFO firms start at $2M. We start lower, because a $400K agency running contractors and clients on different terms already has money hiding in it. Below roughly $300K a good bookkeeper is usually enough, and we will tell you that on the call.
04We already have a bookkeeper. What changes?
If the books are clean we work on top of them and your bookkeeper stays. What changes is that somebody reads the numbers and brings you the decision. If the books are behind, we say so and fix that first, because profit by client is only as good as the data under it.
05We already have a CPA. Do you replace them?
No. We work alongside your CPA and hand over a clean, current file, which usually makes their work cheaper. Where something needs a licensed public accountant, they do it.
06Do we have to switch off QuickBooks or Xero?
No. The team is certified on both and works in whichever one you already use. We would rather fix how your accounts are structured than move you onto new software.
07What happens in the first 30 days?
Week one we read your last twelve months. Weeks two and three we rebuild the reporting around client and project. Week four you get the first read: profit by client, your effective hourly rate, and the accounts worth repricing.
08Are we locked into a contract?
No. The work is monthly and you can stop on 30 days' notice. It compounds, so most of the value shows up after a few months. We would still rather you left than stayed on something that is not paying for itself.
09How does billing work?
A flat monthly fee, agreed before anything starts, invoiced monthly. Catch-up work on books that are behind is quoted once and separately, so it never hides inside the recurring number.
10Are you a CPA firm?
No. Aprecity Consultants LLC is not a public accounting firm and does not offer services requiring a public accountancy license. The team holds FCCA and ACCA credentials, which are chartered certified accountancy qualifications, and we work alongside your CPA where one is needed.
11Who actually works on our account?
One of three named people: Mohammad Azam FCCA, Asad Riaz ACCA or Syed Faheem Basit ACCA. The person who reads your accounts is the person on your call. There is no account manager relaying answers.
Next step
Find the one that’s costing you
Twenty minutes, your last twelve months, a straight answer.
Month one
4 ITEMS
- Profit by clientAll accounts, ranked
- Cash forecast13 weeks out
- Effective hourly ratePer account
- The one to repriceNamed
Figures shown are illustrative and describe an invented agency. Read the full note.