For CFOs, VPs Finance and fractional CFOs
The board deck says one pipeline number. The CRM export says another.
We read the CRM and the marketing automation platform the way an auditor reads a ledger: which open opportunities have no close date, which stages have not moved in ninety days, where closed-won stops matching what finance invoiced, and which of marketing's and sales's fields the forecast is actually built on. Three weeks, read-only, every finding tied to an export you can re-run. From USD $1,500, credited in full against any fix.
The moment
When this is worth three weeks
A forecast missed by more than the error bar for two quarters. A fundraise or diligence request for a pipeline export that has to be defended line by line. A new CFO inheriting a CRM a founder set up in a weekend. Marketing claiming forty percent of sourced pipeline and sales claiming none, with one number due in front of the board. In each case the problem is not the model — it is the fields the model reads.
Three questions we get asked
Answered the way we would answer them on the call.
Usually three things at once: stage definitions that drifted apart between marketing and sales, a large share of open deals with no close date or a stale one, and a "closed-won" that is set by a workflow rather than by the signed order. The audit counts each of those and shows you the rows.
Not "what is the attribution model" but "which field does the sourced number come from, who can write to it, and when was it last reconciled to closed revenue?" If nobody can answer the third question, the number is a claim, not a measurement. We answer it with an export.
The forecast is a finance number built on marketing's and sales's fields. The audit reads the fields. It is usually sponsored by finance and executed with marketing operations in the room, and the readout is written so it can be forwarded to either side without translation.
A finding, in the format you would get it
Finding, evidence, exposure, fix. Always in that order.
Anonymised from a real engagement; numbers rounded. Every figure in a real readout carries the export that produced it.
Setup
Fintech, ~300 people, HubSpot CRM. Board pipeline reported at $11.4M.
Evidence
1,842 open opportunities. 611 with no close date. 288 in a stage untouched for 90+ days. 74 marked closed-won by a workflow with no associated invoice in the finance system.
Exposure
Defensible pipeline after exclusions: $6.9M. The gap was not a sales problem; it was a definitions problem nobody owned.
Fix
Written stage definitions with exit criteria, a close-date-required rule at stage three, and a monthly closed-won-to-invoice reconcile that finance runs, not marketing.
The full sample is on the worked sample audit page. The audit is from USD $1,500 — up to 100k records, credited in full against the fix — and the pricing page has every band.
Questions
The four that usually come next.
No. We need a read-only user on the CRM and the automation platform. For the closed-won reconcile we ask you for an invoice export; we never connect to the ledger.
It is read-only and tightly scoped, so the risk to you is close to zero, and it is credited in full against any fix you commission within thirty days. Portals above 100k records are priced by volume; the pricing page has the bands.
The hire takes a quarter to land and a quarter to ramp. The audit takes three weeks and becomes their day-one map. Most finance leaders run it before the seat is filled.
It is written so it can. Findings, evidence, exposure, fix, in that order, with the exports attached. Several clients have used it as the pipeline section of a diligence pack.
Get the five numbers before the next board meeting.
A thirty-minute call to see whether the audit fits, then three weeks of evidence. From USD $1,500, credited against the fix.