Your agency shouldn’t depend on you
You built an agency that works. The trouble is it only works when you’re in it. I’m Stephen Mackinnon FCCA, a fractional FD for digital agencies.
Founder-led finances have a ceiling
Somewhere between eight people and twenty-five, the agency outgrows the way you run the money. You’re still approving every quote, every hire, every invoice.
One morning you open the wardrobe and it’s full of all the other hats. Finance director. Ops lead. HR. Credit control. You only ever wanted to wear one.
And the numbers? Some founders are too terrified to even open the bank account to see what’s there.
Busy and profitable are different things. Profit shouldn’t be a dirty word.
Who this is for
Founder-led UK digital agencies. Marketing, creative, web, performance, branding. Eight to twenty-five people, turnover between one and three million, and a founder who is still the answer to every question.
If that’s you, you already know the business is good. You just can’t leave it alone for a fortnight.
What flying blind costs
You’re busy. The team’s flat out. And you still couldn’t say what you made last month.
That’s flying blind. You find out a project lost money after it’s finished. You hire on gut feel. You pay yourself whatever’s left.
And the tools? You’ve already bought them. A dashboard nobody opens fixes nothing.
Unhooked
Cashflow clarity. Systems that stick. A business that doesn’t depend on you.
Assess
We find where the money really goes and where the real problems are. It’s rarely where you think.
Build
A plan, and the numbers to run it. Cashflow you can see coming. Reporting built on the systems you already use, that tells you what you need to know and nothing else.
Sustain
Systems your team owns, so the agency runs like a well-oiled machine whether you’re in the room or not.
What changes
You open the bank account without wincing.
You know what you made last month, and what you can afford next month.
Fewer things need your sign-off, because the team has the numbers to decide.
You take a fortnight off, and the agency doesn’t notice.
Where it starts
A Diagnostic. Seven to ten days, fixed fee. You walk away with:
- Where your cash actually goes, and how much runway you really have
- Margin by client and by project, so you know which work pays
- The decisions still routed through you, and which ones don’t need to be
- A 90-day plan to fix what’s broken
From there, Unhooked is a monthly programme. We work the plan together until the systems stick.
One date. Thirty days.
When I was running the finances at a telecoms business, our biggest customer always paid a month late. Not because they were difficult. Because we dated the invoice the 1st, and their system filed it in the wrong month.
We moved the invoice date back by one day. Same customer, same work. The money started landing up to 30 days earlier.
Most cash problems look like that. Not a crisis. A habit nobody’s questioned.
Who you’d be working with
I’m Stephen Mackinnon FCCA. I’ve spent 25 years helping small business owners with their finances and operations, and I’ve sat in the finance director’s chair myself, so I know what it’s like when the cash doesn’t land.
No finance theatre. You won’t get a forty-page report nobody reads. You’ll get clear numbers, a plan, and someone who’ll tell you where the real problem is.
The goal isn’t that you need me. It’s that you trust your numbers and your team enough to step back.
If it resonates, get in touch.
Prefer to write? Send me a message.
Mackinnon Advisory is a trading style of Mackinnon Accountants Ltd
(Reg. No. 16224633)
Registered Office: 20 Wenlock Road, London N1 7GU