About
An advisory firm for finance, data and automation.
Longhand builds the financial, operating and data infrastructure behind good management decisions, and the working assets that keep it running.
What Longhand does
Four capabilities, one system.
We keep and close the books; build forecasts, financial models and valuation analysis; connect financial and operating data into consistent reporting; and automate the recurring work. These are four connected capabilities. They are designed to work together, but an engagement can begin with the capability the business needs most.
Who we work with
Growing US technology and software businesses.
Our work is aimed mainly at growing US technology and software businesses. They have outgrown basic bookkeeping and fragmented spreadsheets, but do not yet have the finance, reporting and data infrastructure the business now requires. We work with founders, finance leads and operators.
How we think about finance
Principles.
- Finance and operating data, together. The ledger records what happened in accounting terms. Billing, CRM and product data describe the business. Good decisions need both, reconciled and consistently defined. How the two connect.
- Working assets over slideware. We build things your team uses every month: close packages, models, reporting packs and workflows. They stay with you. See a monthly report.
- Assumptions before answers. A forecast or a valuation is only as useful as the operating assumptions behind it. We make those assumptions visible, so they can be discussed and tested.
- Automation comes after process. We automate stable, well-defined work on reliable data. Automating a broken process only produces errors faster. Where automation fits.
- Specific over impressive. Numbers should be defined, sourced and reconciled. Commentary should say what changed, why, and what decision follows.
How engagements work
Diagnose, build, run.
A diagnostic, typically two to three weeks, maps the systems, close, reporting and decisions. A milestone-based build puts the working assets in place. Monthly support follows where it is useful. Read about our approach.
Longhand is not a CPA firm and does not provide tax, audit, assurance or legal services. We are not an investment bank or broker-dealer and do not provide fairness opinions. We work alongside the advisers who do.
Discuss a project.
Tell us what you are trying to fix or build: a close that takes too long, a forecast nobody trusts, a valuation question, reporting that is assembled by hand. We will reply with how we would approach it.