About
CFO-level finance judgement for owner-managed businesses.
A business can have an accountant, a bookkeeper, capable finance software and management accounts that arrive every month, and still have nobody whose job it is to say what any of it means for the decision in front of management.
Why PelicanCFO exists
PelicanCFO exists to give business owners a senior finance view of their own numbers: what the information is telling them, what it is not, and what to do about it.
That gap is not a failure of the accountant or the system. Both may be doing exactly what they are there to do. Compliance gets done, transactions get recorded, reports get produced. What is missing is the layer above: someone senior enough to interpret the information, say where it is weak, and turn it into a decision.
The aim is a business run on information it has reason to trust, rather than on instinct and recollection alone.
What PelicanCFO does
Three things, which reinforce each other.
CFO judgement
Senior finance thinking applied to decisions that are genuinely ambiguous, where the answer is not in the ledger.
Financial control
Better visibility, reporting and cash discipline, so the numbers are good enough to run the business on.
Practical automation
Automation used where it genuinely improves finance work, and left alone where it does not.
In practice that usually starts with The Pelican Finance Health Check, and continues as ongoing CFO support where the findings justify it.
The businesses it is built for
It tends to look like this.
- The business is privately owned, and the people who own it are the people running it.
- It has grown enough that decisions carry real consequences.
- There is an accountant, and probably a bookkeeper, but nobody giving a senior finance opinion.
- Finance information exists, but is not always trusted enough to act on.
PelicanCFO is based near Guildford and works with businesses across Surrey, Hampshire, West Sussex and the wider South East - and elsewhere in the UK where remote working suits the engagement.
Senior-led by design
PelicanCFO is senior-led. Finance judgement is the product, so the people forming the conclusions stay close to the work rather than reviewing it from a distance.
- The information
- The discussion
- The judgement
- The recommendations
Additional specialist support can be brought in where the work requires it. What does not change is that the senior finance view stays present throughout the engagement rather than appearing at the start and disappearing afterwards.
James Lancaster
PelicanCFO was founded by James Lancaster ACMA, a CFO with more than 20 years' experience across owner-managed, privately owned and investor-backed businesses.
James has spent much of his career inside businesses at points where the decisions get harder - growth, acquisitions, funding, turnaround and sale. He co-founded and sold his own retail business, led the sale of an IT managed-services business at 12x EBITDA, and was finance lead for the holding company on the sale of a £100m-revenue manufacturing business.
His experience also includes turning around an international ecommerce and manufacturing business, completing acquisitions and integrations, rebuilding finance functions, implementing new systems and improving the quality of information available to management.
James started his career in financial markets, including listed derivatives operations at Credit Suisse, before moving into commercial finance and operating businesses.
PelicanCFO reflects that breadth. Sales, operations, people, systems and processes all shape the information that reaches management. Connecting those areas properly gives owners a clearer view of what is happening in the business and a stronger basis for deciding what to do next.
- ACMA
- CIMA qualified
- 20+ years
- Finance and business leadership
- 12x EBITDA
- Managed-services exit
- £100m
- Manufacturing business sale
Working alongside your accountant, team and systems
This is not a replacement for an accountant, a bookkeeper or a finance team, and it is not a software migration. Where an accountant already advises the business, PelicanCFO works alongside them. Where there is a finance team, the usual outcome is that the team gets clearer priorities and somebody senior to escalate to.
PelicanCFO is not an accountancy firm, a bookkeeping provider or a recruitment agency, and it does not sell software.
How the work is evidenced
Every rating and recommendation carries the evidence behind it. Where the evidence is thin, that is recorded as a finding rather than dressed up, because weak information tells you something about the finance function.
Client information is used only for the engagement it was given for. No client-identifiable information appears in marketing without written approval, and demonstrations use sample data only.
Start with the finance question you actually have.
A short call is usually enough to work out whether there is something here worth looking at properly, and what the sensible first step would be.