Kairos Executive

The group finance view — every entity, one ledger-derived picture.

Management accounts, findings ranked by rand impact, a 13-week cash forecast built from open invoices, working capital and committee packs. For a group running four to fifteen entities across more than one accounting system.

Derived on every renderNothing stored, nothing re-keyed.
Every figure traces to sourceAccount, entity, ledger, timestamp.
Management, not statutoryAnd the screens say so.
Where the month goes

Producing the numbers is not the expensive part.

Most group finance functions have the arithmetic under control. The week that disappears comes after it.

Largely solved
  • Closing the ledgers
  • Producing the management accounts
  • Consolidating the entities
Where the time and the risk go
  • Writing the commentary
  • Assembling and reformatting the pack
  • Re-issuing after the chair comes back
  • Preparing for the questions
  • Chasing last meeting's actions
The exposure is not in the arithmetic. It is being asked something in the room you cannot answer, page four not agreeing with page eleven, and something tabled as final that was provisional.
What it does

One view across every entity in the group.

Management accounts

Profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow that reconcile to each other, at group or entity.

Analysis to the account

Entity, product line and general ledger account, with prior year and budget throughout.

Findings

Seventeen detectors over the ledger, ranked by what each is worth in rands.

13-week cash forecast

Open invoices at their own due dates, adjusted by each counterparty's payment history.

Working capital

Cycle, ageing, named exposures, and the cash between the book and your target.

Committee packs

Board, audit, risk and investment, assembled from the same ledger.

A management consolidation, not a statutory one — and the screens say so.
The property everything rests on

Every figure traces to a source account, in a named ledger, at a stated point in time.

A figure on screen› A statement line› A general ledger account› A named entity› A ledger, with a timestamp

Because that holds, you can drill from a group total to the invoice in three steps, and see which account moved rather than which category. The audit trail is not a report written about the number — it is how the number was built.

Checked on every render, not at year end: the balance sheet balances to the rand in every entity and every month, profit after tax agrees across the profit and loss, the cash flow and retained earnings, closing cash agrees to the balance sheet, and 680 cross-foot checks run across every scope and period.

It is also the property that erodes first, one shortcut at a time. Everything else here depends on it holding.
Findings

It finds things, and ranks them by value.

Seventeen detectors, recomputed every time and never stored. Ranked by rand impact rather than severity — a red flag worth eleven thousand does not belong above an amber one worth nine hundred thousand.

Amortisation absorbing EBITDAR2.37m
Debtor days at 61R1.37m
Debtor days at 74R0.91m
Revenue behind planR0.88m
Churn spikeR0.43m

It found this without being told it was there.

2210  GDS and distribution fees
+ R95,206
Cost of sales, up against an eleven-month baseline
3625  Booking systems and distribution
– R78,502
Other administration, down by substantially the same amount

Two accounts that very nearly cancel. Gross margin falls; EBITDA does not move. It compared the entity's cost of sales ratio against its own eleven-month history, found the step, then went looking for an equal and opposite movement in an operating cost line. It was not given the amount, the month, the entity or the account. Every margin comparative for that month was wrong, and the audit committee pack now says so.

Cash and working capital

Built from actual invoices, not a percentage of revenue.

Open debtor invoices at their own due dates, each adjusted by that counterparty's payment history. Collection probability falls with age. Payroll, PAYE, VAT, debt service and committed capital sit on the statutory calendar. Three levers recompute live: collection rate, supplier stretch, and capital deferral.

Alongside it, the working capital cycle: full ageing tied to the control account, named concentration exposures, and the cash sitting between the book and the target you set — quantified per entity and per day, so a conversation about debtor days has a rand value attached to it.

Every assumption is on the page — collection probabilities by age, payment lags, VAT treatment. A forecast is only as good as the assumptions somebody can argue with.
Committee packs

Packs that assemble themselves.

Cover, agenda, numbered sections with live figures and a resolutions block, in a print view that circulates. Board, audit, risk and investment — each reading the same ledger.

One number, three packs, a thread nobody wrote

A capital expenditure covenant at 14% headroom, the tightest measure in the group. Risk names it the binding constraint. Investment conditions every approval on lender consent. Board asks the Treasurer to engage the lender.

You land on the half hour before the meeting, not the finished pack: what has changed since this committee last met, and the ten questions you will be asked — each with the answer and the follow-up already computed.

What it will not do

A finance system earns its place by what it refuses to say.

The next step

Point it at your own ledgers and see what it finds.

Thirty days on your own month-end, under our standard evaluation agreement.

We reply within one business day. Prefer email? Write to sfourie@kairosintel.co.za.

Figures on this page are from a worked example on a demonstration group, not a customer's ledger.