Fractional CFO, multi-location services
Martin has run the finance function for multi-unit operators on both the branch and holdco sides for more than a decade. He writes Aziell's field-tested playbook pieces — driver-based budgeting, scenario planning, the Debt Optimizer walkthroughs — and spends most of his client work turning spreadsheet-driven budgets into driver-based models. He has closed more than 40 SBA and bank refinancings, each priced in both cash and enterprise-value dollars.
Your budget workbook looks cheap. It isn’t. Between version drift, formula errors, and stale actuals, most multi-location operators burn a mid-five-figure sum every year keeping a spreadsheet alive.
Every quarter, some portco is inside a covenant cushion that looked comfortable at close and is now thin. Finding out two weeks after the reporting date is not an operating problem — it is a preventable fund-IRR problem. Here is how to fix it.
Driver-based budgeting replaces guesswork with math. Here is the complete framework we use with multi-location service operators, from picking the three drivers that actually matter to keeping the model honest.
Most pre-close models over-invest in top-line growth assumptions and under-invest in branch-level variance, covenant stress-tests, and working-capital rhythm. Here is what to model instead.
Most value creation plans fail because they document aspirations, not drivers. Here is the VCP structure that actually moves EBITDA across a multi-location portfolio — and integrates directly into quarterly board packs.
SBA 7(a) loans are oxygen. They are also, often, the single largest source of silent enterprise-value leakage in a multi-location business. Here is how to spot the leak and fix it.
Most scenario plans are useless because they perturb the wrong variables. Here is the framework that focuses on the three levers multi-location operators can actually pull — and how to model each.