Transformation promises numbers. Someone has to prove them.
Operational, digital and AI programmes are sold on targets: gross margin up two points, cost to serve down a fifth, the same work done by a smaller team. A consultancy or an integrator commits to the target, the programme runs for a year or two, and at the end nobody in finance can say which of the savings reached the P&L. We take the finance side of the programme: the business case, the starting numbers, the monthly tracking, and the finance processes the programme drags into the light. We work alongside your integrator, not instead of them.
- What we are
- The finance workstream,
not the integrator - We report to
- You, the sponsor,
not the programme office - Best time to start
- Before the business
case is approved - Also common
- When month end starts
showing the damage - Scope
- Business case, baseline,
benefits tracking, close,
inventory, receivables, funding - Vendor commission
- None, from anyone
- The test
- Savings you can find
in the accounts
Six reasons transformation savings never reach the P&L
The business case was never tested by finance
It was built by the people selling or sponsoring the programme, in a spreadsheet that does not tie to the ledger. Headcount savings are counted at full cost with no severance, revenue uplift is counted before anyone asks what it cannibalises, and the one-off costs of getting there sit in a different tab, or nowhere.
Nobody froze the baseline
Without a starting point drawn from the ledger for a defined period and signed off before the work begins, every later claim becomes an argument. Seasonality, price increases and one-off items let a before and after comparison say whatever the person presenting it needs it to say.
The same saving is counted twice, or in the wrong period
Three workstreams claim the same reduction in headcount. A procurement saving is booked the month the contract is signed rather than the month the invoices change. A cost moves from one line to another and is reported as removed.
Month end exposes everything the programme touched
Invoices that no longer match receipts, subsidiaries that do not roll up, intercompany balances that do not agree. The close is where a redesigned process shows whether it actually works, and it lands on a finance team that was not in the room when the process was redesigned.
The inventory everyone knows is wrong
Retail, distribution and manufacturing programmes sooner or later reach stock carried at a value nobody believes: aged, damaged, or no longer there. Writing it down in one quarter hurts, so it is postponed, and the margin the programme delivers is quietly absorbed by the correction when it finally comes.
Nobody planned the cash
Programmes are approved on returns and paid for out of operating cash. The costs arrive in the first six months and the benefits in the second year, and how those costs are treated, what can be capitalised and what cannot, is decided by whoever writes the invoice rather than by finance.
The finance workstream
Test the business case before it is approved
Every assumption tied back to the ledger, the one-off costs priced in (severance, running old and new in parallel, write-downs, fees), and a version the board can approve knowing finance stands behind it. Sometimes the answer is that the programme should be smaller, or sequenced differently.
Agree and freeze the baseline
A defined period drawn from the accounts, with the adjustments for seasonality and one-off items written down, signed off by the sponsor and the integrator before the work starts. It is the least glamorous document in the programme and the one every later conversation depends on.
Track the benefits against the accounts every month
A benefits register mapped to cost centres and ledger accounts, reported alongside the management pack. Each claimed saving is either found in the accounts, or explained, or withdrawn.
Rebuild the close the programme exposes
Invoice matching, intercompany, subsidiary roll-up and the reconciliations that break when processes change, redesigned with owners and dates and written into SOPs. Where the fix is automation, we design the process before anyone automates it.
Clean up inventory and receivables
A stock count and ageing rules everyone applies the same way, a stock ledger that agrees to the general ledger, and a phased write-down plan agreed with your auditor rather than postponed. The same discipline on receivables, because cash released from working capital is often what pays for the programme.
Treat the programme costs correctly
What can be capitalised under Thai Financial Reporting Standards and what has to be expensed, documented and agreed with the auditor before the invoices arrive rather than argued about at year end.
Plan and fund the programme
A cash plan for the life of the programme and, where the business cannot fund it from operations, the bank facilities or other financing to bridge the gap between the spending and the benefits.
Alongside them, not instead of them
Consultancies, business integrators and AI vendors are good at redesigning how work gets done. Most will tell you openly that they are not finance specialists, and the good ones are relieved when somebody on the client side owns the numbers.
We do not implement systems, sell licences or take commission from any vendor or integrator. The normal arrangement is that you engage us, we sit on the steering committee as the finance workstream lead, and nothing counts as delivered until finance has signed off the baseline and the benefit.
Sometimes it runs the other way and an integrator brings us in to run the finance workstream inside its programme. That works too, provided you know from the start who is paying us. What we will not do is both at once: if our job is to tell you what a programme has delivered, we are engaged by you, and no fee passes between us and the integrator. If you run a consultancy or an integrator, the partner terms are here.
Jérôme ran ERP, TMS and shared services rollouts across fourteen APAC markets at Scan Global Logistics, has taken the finance side of more than a dozen ERP migrations, and has worked in retail at Carrefour and Decathlon, where the value of the stock is the question that never goes away. He set out this role in his keynote at Finance ReImagined Thailand 2026.
ERP migration, the finance side · SOPs, process and AI · If finance is leading the programme · What it costs
Four things we will not do
Relabel operating costs so they can be capitalised
Calling system support an enhancement, or bundling running costs into a capital project, flatters this year’s profit and moves the problem to the auditor’s next visit. We will show you what can legitimately be capitalised and document it. We will not dress up what cannot.
Keep a second set of books
When the real inventory or receivables position differs from the one being reported, the job is to close the gap on a plan the auditor and the board can see, not to maintain two versions of the truth.
Sign off a benefit we cannot find
However good the story, a saving that cannot be traced to the accounts is not reported as delivered.
Commit to the operational target
The integrator owns the basket size, the service level and the headcount. We own whether the numbers that measure them are true. Mixing the two is how a programme ends up marking its own homework.
Scope and boundaries
We already pay a consultancy. Why would we need you as well?
Because their job is to deliver the change and yours is to know whether it paid. Those are different questions, and a programme that answers both from the same team has nobody checking. Our fees are usually a small part of what the programme costs.
Is this only for finance transformation?
No. Most of the programmes we join are operational, commercial or AI programmes where finance is not leading. If your CFO is running a finance transformation and needs senior hands, that is a different arrangement, working under them.
What is different about AI programmes?
The savings are nearly always expressed as work no longer done by people. The benefit only exists when the roles, the contractors or the overtime actually go, and when the exceptions the machine cannot handle have been costed. We use AI in our own work and we are in favour of it. We are also the people who check whether the fifty became five.
When should we bring you in?
Before the business case is approved, because that is when corrections are cheapest. Next best is before the baseline period is agreed. Mid-programme is common too, usually when the close starts slipping or the benefits reported to the board stop matching the accounts.
What does it cost?
Testing the business case and freezing the baseline is a fixed fee, quoted after a first call and a look at the numbers. Running the finance workstream through the programme is priced like our intensive engagement: from USD 18,000 a month while the work is heavy, stepping down to USD 12,000 once it is not.
Do you work outside Thailand?
Yes. Most programmes involve more than one country. We work across Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, and regional groups are a large share of the work.