The £300,000 contract that nearly ended the business

When Holly first came to me, she'd been let down more than once. She and the other owner had been through a run of accountants, including one who tried to tell her how to price her washroom service, in an industry he knew nothing about, and sent her what amounted to a telling-off by email. Around the same time the business lost a £300,000 contract, its biggest piece of work, almost overnight. It was the kind of moment that finishes a lot of companies.

What she needed wasn't someone to tell her off. It was someone to bring some calm and some clarity, and to be straight with her. We got the numbers in order so she could see exactly where the business stood, worked through what had to change and what could wait, and built a plan to rebuild without the contract. Along the way we sorted things her previous accountants had never thought to mention, including tax relief on charity donations that had been going through the books for years unclaimed.

These days she uses me as much as a sounding board as anything. When she's weighing up whether to tender for a piece of work, we'll get on a call, put the real figures in front of us, and decide together whether it's worth chasing.