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Buy the diagnosis before you buy the platform.
Most finance systems programmes are scoped by the firm that will be paid to build them. That is not advice. It is a quotation with a preamble.
The Finance Systems Diagnostic is a short, paid engagement with one purpose: to establish where your problem actually sits, before anyone commits to a solution. Sometimes the answer is a platform. Often it is the source data, the mapping, the accounting structure, or the fact that nobody owns the application. Those are cheaper problems, and you should know which one you have.
Why it is paid
Free discovery is never disinterested.
Every consultancy offers a free assessment. It is presales, and it ends in a proposal, because the cost of the unpaid work has to be recovered from somewhere. That does not make those firms dishonest. It makes their conclusion predictable.
Charging for the diagnostic changes what it is allowed to conclude. If the finding is that your accounting structure needs fixing before any platform is bought, we can say so and still have been paid for the work. If the finding is that you do not need us at all, we can say that too.
It also changes the depth. Two or three weeks of paid access to your systems, your people and your close produces something a one-hour call cannot: a written view of the whole chain, with the risks named and the roadmap sequenced.
You keep the output either way. If you take it to another firm and have them build it, the document still does its job.
The one question it answers
Which layer is your problem actually in: the ledger, the integration, the application logic, the reporting model, or the ownership around it?
Everything else in the engagement follows from getting that right. A platform bought to solve a source data problem does not solve it. It industrialises it.
What it examines
Six areas, in this order.
The order matters. Each one constrains the next, and platform fit is deliberately fifth rather than first.
Finance process
What is slow, manual, fragile or difficult to control. Where the close actually loses its days, as opposed to where people assume it does.
Accounting structure
Entities, accounts, currencies, intercompany rules and reporting hierarchies. Whether they are stable enough to build on, or need work first.
ERP and source systems
Where the data originates, how each application behaves, and what it can and cannot be asked to produce on a close timetable.
Integration and reconciliation
Mappings, transformations, data quality and the recurring differences nobody has ever traced to source. Usually the most revealing area of the six.
Platform fit
Whether the requirement belongs in OneStream, Anaplan, a smaller tool, or in process redesign with no new software at all.
Ownership and support
Who will own administration, releases, data quality and controlled change after go-live. The area most often skipped and most often fatal.
What you receive
A document your board can act on.
Written, specific and yours. Not a slide deck of observations, and not a proposal wearing a report's clothing.
It is built so that a finance director, a CFO or an audit committee can read it without translation, and so that any competent firm could deliver from it, including one that is not us.
- 01
- Current state summaryProcess, systems and structure as they actually are, in plain English.
- 02
- Risk registerNamed risks with likelihood and consequence, including the ones nobody has written down before.
- 03
- Finance systems architectureWhat connects to what today, and what the target should look like.
- 04
- Platform recommendationOneStream, Anaplan, another tool, process redesign, or a recommendation not to proceed.
- 05
- Prioritised roadmapPhased, sequenced by dependency rather than by enthusiasm.
- 06
- Scope and commercial rangeWritten scope for the next phase with assumptions, exclusions and an indicative cost.
How it runs
Two to three weeks, and light on your team.
Total time asked of your people is usually six to ten hours across the engagement, spread over a handful of sessions. The rest is our work.
Scoping call
Thirty minutes, no charge, to confirm the diagnostic is the right piece of work and that we are the right people. If it is obvious you need something smaller, we say so here rather than selling you a report.
Sessions and access
Structured conversations with finance, and with whoever owns the source systems. Read access to the applications and a copy of a recent close pack, so we look at what happened rather than at what is supposed to happen.
Analysis and tracing
We trace a reported figure back to source and see where it stops tying. This is the part that most often changes the conclusion, and it is the reason the engagement is not a questionnaire.
Findings and walkthrough
You receive the document, then we walk through it with whoever needs to hear it, including a sceptical board member. Questions after delivery are included; you do not pay for a conversation about your own report.
What it costs
From £5,000
The final figure depends on the number of entities, the number and condition of your source systems, and how many stakeholder groups need to be involved. We confirm it in writing after the scoping call, before you commit to anything.
It is the one price we publish, because it is the one engagement whose scope does not depend on what we find. Implementation, integration and engineering work is scoped according to complexity, source system landscape, data quality, control requirements and delivery timeline, and priced before build begins.
Worth saying out loud
When you should not buy this either.
The diagnostic is a real piece of work with a real price, and there are situations where it is the wrong purchase.
You already know the answer
If you have a clear requirement, a settled accounting structure and a shortlist, you do not need diagnosis. You need a scope and a price. Ask us for those instead.
The decision is already made
If the platform has been chosen, signed and announced, a report telling you it was the wrong choice helps nobody. We would rather start at design.
You are a single entity on one ledger
The chain we examine barely exists at that size. A conversation with your accountant about your chart of accounts will get you further, and cost less.
You need it to justify a decision
If the purpose is a document supporting a conclusion already reached, we are the wrong firm. The findings go where the evidence goes.
Questions
Before you ask.
What if the conclusion is that we should do nothing?
Then that is what the report says, and it is one of the more valuable outcomes it can produce. A group that spends five thousand pounds to avoid a hundred thousand pound mistake has had a good return.
Can we use the report with a different supplier?
Yes. It is written so that any competent firm can deliver from it, and it belongs to you. We would obviously rather do the work, but the document is not built as a lock-in device.
How much access do you need to our systems?
Read access is enough. We do not need to change anything, and we do not need production credentials with write permissions. Where access cannot be granted quickly, we work from exports and a screen share, which is slower but workable.
Who actually carries out the work?
A practitioner does. Harp & Crown is a practitioner-led practice, and the diagnostic in particular is not delegated, because it depends on having run a close and defended a forecast rather than on having read about them.
Is the fee credited if we go ahead?
Where the diagnostic leads to a delivery engagement with us, part or all of it is credited against that work, scaled to the size of the engagement. The exact terms are in the proposal. It is not an automatic refund, because the diagnostic is real work with standalone value rather than presales in disguise.
Do you sign a non-disclosure agreement?
Yes, before any access is granted, and we are content to work under yours rather than insisting on our own.
Start with a scoping call.
Thirty minutes, no charge and no obligation, to work out whether the diagnostic is the right piece of work for what you are dealing with.