EQG
EQG is a boutique firm. Shareholders engage our team to perform in-depth analysis of the financial performance of the businesses they own. We read between the lines, connect operations and backend systems, and deliver concise recommendations based on the specific objectives of each client.
Our work
Our team is built from senior finance operators: CFOs and controllers who have run the function rather than only advised on it. That background lets us account for where every dollar in a business is allocated and the return it drives, then say what it means for the operation.
We work with owner-operated businesses and with companies that carry outside investors. Each engagement is built around one question from shareholders, so we do not publish a fixed list of services. Much of what we do is simplification: building repeatable processes that report accurately and on time.
Most owners did not set out to become experts in their own accounting. A good part of our job is taking the financial questions off an owner’s desk so the day goes to running the business. We come in for a defined piece of work, deliver our findings and move on. The finance and operating teams stay where they are, and usually end up with better information to work from than they had before.
Industries
We are industry-agnostic. Where money is spent and what it returns behave the same way in every business; what differs is the operating detail, and our team learns that quickly.
A pricing problem in field services tends to resemble one in distribution, and having seen both is what tells us where to look first.
Our network
Our work turns up questions we are not the right people to answer. We have built a network of specialists we use ourselves, and shareholders get access to people it would otherwise take months to find.
When something calls for a specialist, we make the introduction and step back. There is no layer between you and the person doing the work.
Clarity
We keep working until the numbers say what happened and what it cost. Your team stops reconciling competing versions and works from one set of figures that everyone reads the same way.
Speed
We scope tightly and we do not linger. Questions that used to wait for quarter-end get answered the same week, and decisions stop queueing behind the reporting.
Trust
We show our work, and every figure we hand over can be traced back to where it came from. Put one in front of a lender or an auditor and it will hold.
Confidentiality
Everything we see belongs to the shareholders who engaged us and stays with them. We ask for the least access that lets us do the work, and we would rather read a system than be handed a copy of it.
We do not take data out of your systems beyond what the work requires, and whatever we do hold is destroyed once the engagement closes. Nothing about an engagement is published anywhere, including on this page, without the client agreeing to it first.
A recent engagement
A commercial facility services provider in the Southeast · Three-month engagement
The shareholders could see what the business earned but not what it cost to earn it. Two related entities kept their books differently, and the reports reaching them did not agree.
We consolidated the processes across both entities and replaced the competing reports with one dashboard. We rebuilt the chart of accounts so that cost of services was separated from operating expense, which brought into view spending that had never been broken out. We then connected bidding, service delivery and annual price increases to the financial statements, so that the P&L reflected how the work is sold and performed.
The savings came out of duplicated and forgotten spending rather than out of headcount, and the eighty hours a month went back to the same back office. By the end the management team was reading its own numbers.
▸ See the full engagement
- Introduced software connecting field labor, supervisors and the back office.
- Removed manual reconciliation between bookkeeping, payroll and systems that did not speak to each other.
- Established a reporting rhythm delivered on a fixed date rather than on request.
- Left the team with written processes they could run without us.
We do not identify the companies we work with, and nothing here was published without the shareholders’ agreement. Client-authorized references are available on request.
Contact
Tell us what you are trying to find out. A short conversation is enough for both of us to know whether we can help.
Our work comes to us almost entirely by referral. If someone pointed you here, please name them in your email; it tells us most of what we need before we speak.