Investment levels, outcomes, and how the work is sequenced.
Every engagement starts with a Systems Diagnostic and ladders into cleanup, automation, and AI — in the right order. Here's what each phase involves, what it costs, and what it produces.
Start with a Systems Diagnostic — $2,500No retainer. No sales pitch. Roadmap delivered in 1–2 weeks.
Typical Engagement Investment
Three phases. One operating system.
These are not isolated services — they are phases of the same buildout. Most businesses need the diagnostic before anything else. The diagnostic roadmap determines what comes next.
Systems Diagnostic
Identify the bottlenecks before spending anything on a fix.
A structured assessment of your ERP, CRM, and financial systems — where the data breaks down, where manual work is filling the gaps, and what to fix first. Produces a prioritized 90-day roadmap.
What this produces
- Identify broken reporting and data quality issues
- Map automation and integration opportunities
- Surface hidden profit leaks from manual overhead
- Clear execution plan — actionable whether or not we work together
Typical Investment
$2,500 – $4,000
Timeline
1–2 weeks
Deliverable
Prioritized 90-day systems roadmap
Why start with a Diagnostic?
Implementing tools before fixing system architecture usually wastes time and money. The diagnostic identifies where the leverage is before committing to larger work.
Systems Cleanup & Automation
Fix what's broken. Eliminate the manual work.
Hands-on systems repair — ERP reconfiguration, reporting layer fixes, workflow automation, integration cleanup, and custom data pipelines. The goal is an operating system your team works through, not around.
What this produces
- Clean reporting layer leadership can trust
- Automated workflows replacing recurring manual tasks
- Reliable operational visibility without spreadsheet workarounds
- Systems configured to match how the business actually runs
Typical Investment
$5,000 – $15,000
Timeline
4–8 weeks
Deliverable
Clean, reliable operating system with automated workflows
Executive AI Layer
Layer intelligence on a clean foundation.
Practical AI and automation built on top of stable systems — decision support, anomaly detection, executive briefing tools, and workflow automation that reduces friction instead of creating it.
What this produces
- Summarize meetings, reports, and operational data automatically
- Search company knowledge and historical context quickly
- Executive briefings generated from live system data
- Anomaly detection surfacing issues before they compound
Typical Investment
$2,500 – $5,000
Timeline
2–4 weeks
Deliverable
AI interface layered into existing business systems
Investment ranges reflect typical scope. Complex or multi-system engagements may vary. All larger projects quoted after the diagnostic.
Why engagements are fixed-price
- Clients buy outcomes, not hours
- Faster execution should benefit the client
- Projects are scoped around business impact, not consultant time
Client risk reduction
Flexible payment options are available for implementation work. Most clients spread implementation costs over 3–6 months.
Cost Reality
The Economics of Broken Systems
Most SMBs don't feel system architecture issues as one line-item. They feel them as recurring labor, reconciliation overhead, delayed decisions, and failed automations.
Manual reporting labor
$25K–$40K / year
Recurring exports, spreadsheet rework, and hand-built reports that should be system-generated.
Cross-system reconciliation
$15K–$50K / year
Finance and ops time spent matching numbers between ERP, CRM, billing, and operational tools.
Decision delays
$50K+ impact
Leadership decisions made late or with low confidence because reporting is stale or inconsistent.
Broken automation
Compounding cost
Failed integrations create rework, exceptions, and trust erosion that force teams back to manual workflows.
Investment vs. loss
Most architecture engagements range from $5K–$20K, while the operational inefficiencies they fix often cost $50K–$300K annually. The work is usually less about adding software and more about removing recurring drag.
Return on Systems
What clients typically gain.
Here's what businesses in the $2M–$30M range typically recover when systems are configured to produce what the business actually needs.
5–10 hrs/week
Saved in manual reporting
Finance teams at $5M–$20M companies routinely spend 5–10 hours a week exporting, reformatting, and reconciling data that a properly configured system produces automatically.
$60k+/year
In recovered staff time
At a fully-loaded rate of $30–$50/hour, eliminating 5 hours of manual weekly work across a finance team of two recovers $60k–$100k in annual capacity — without adding headcount.
Faster close
Month-end cycle reduction
SMBs with manual reporting cycles typically close in 10–15 business days. Businesses with clean systems and automated reporting close in 3–5.
Fewer errors
Downstream from clean data
Manual data transfers and spreadsheet-based reporting introduce consistent error patterns. Automated pipelines eliminate them. A single misreported number at board level often costs more than fixing the system.
The bottom line
A $5k–$15k systems cleanup engagement that recovers 8 hours of manual weekly work across a two-person finance team pays for itself in roughly 8–10 weeks at a $30/hr burdened cost. The reporting improvements compound every month after that — in better decisions, faster closes, and reduced risk of material errors.
Context
What this costs compared to the alternative.
For most businesses at this revenue level, the choice is a full-time hire or fractional systems work. Here's what those two paths typically cost.
Full-Time Systems / Operations Leader
$150k – $220k
Per year, fully loaded (salary, benefits, payroll taxes, onboarding)
- –3–6 month ramp before productive output
- –Ongoing cost regardless of active project work
- –One set of system experience from one person
- –Recruiting time and cost if it doesn't work out
Fractional Systems Architecture
$5k – $15k
Per engagement — scoped, sequenced, and delivered
- Week-one start, no ramp period
- Scoped to current need — no ongoing overhead
- Cross-system experience across ERP, CRM, and integration
- Diagnostic-first sequencing prevents wasted spend
Fractional makes sense when you need deep systems expertise for a defined problem — not a permanent headcount for a recurring role.
Fit
Who this is — and isn't — a good fit for.
Value pricing means the right clients get real leverage. It also means some engagements wouldn't serve either party well. Both lists are useful before you reach out.
Best fit
- $2M–$50M in annual revenue
- Running an ERP (NetSuite, Business Central, QBO) that isn't delivering what leadership needs
- Finance or ops teams spending hours on manual reporting each week
- Leadership frustrated that systems don't reflect how the business actually runs
- Multiple software tools with no clean integration between them
- Preparing for growth, investment, or acquisition — need clean financial visibility
Not a good fit
- Pre-revenue startups without operational data yet
- Businesses looking for cheap automation scripts or one-off builds
- Companies unwilling to involve finance or operations in the process
- Organizations that have already decided on a solution before the diagnostic
- Businesses under $1M without an existing systems foundation
Flexible Payment
Larger projects can be structured with milestone billing.
For Systems Cleanup and multi-phase engagements, projects can be billed in installments tied to defined milestones rather than a single upfront payment. The Diagnostic is a flat-rate engagement billed at the start.
Payment structure is discussed after the diagnostic scopes the work — so you know exactly what you're buying before any larger engagement begins.
The easiest first step.
Book a Systems Diagnostic. Two weeks. A clear picture of what's broken and what to fix first. Actionable whether or not we work together beyond it.
No retainer commitment. No sales pitch. Roadmap in 1–2 weeks.