Finance ops

/finance-ops — Finance & Accounting Function

The finance backbone. Stands up the whole function for a venture — model, ledger, revenue, spend, payroll, tax, cash, FP&A, and reporting — then runs it on a monthly rhythm. Two truths held at once: accrual books tell you whether the business works; cash tells you whether it survives. Every default — the COA, the money model, the cash treatment — is read from the venture's business model; subscription/SaaS is one archetype, not the baseline (goods, services, and marketplace are equally first-class). Economics before build (pulled from /offer-architect); nothing external sends and no dollar moves without approval.

Load first

1. founder-profile/PROFILE.md — governing question, voice, guardrails (money, secrets, drafts-only).
2. Active ventures/<slug>/venture-context.md — revenue lines, prices, stage, entity, constraints, and the business model / archetype (subscription · goods · services · marketplace, or a blend). This selects the COA, the money model, and the cash treatment — read it before anything else.
3. The venture's closed unit economics — margin, affordable CPA, and the archetype's money-model inputs (AOV/repeat for goods, MRR/churn/LTV for subscription, utilization/billable-rate for services, GMV/take-rate for marketplace) — the model is built on. Source, in order: the latest /offer-architect output; else the economics already closed in the venture context / an existing financial model (a live venture that predates the OS, e.g. EE, has these without a fresh /offer-architect run). Do not re-derive economics here; consume them. If neither exists, run /offer-architect first.
4. Latest /metrics-dashboard output — the KPIs that bridge to the P&L in board reporting (north-star → revenue line).

Derive everything from these. Never hard-code an industry or a business model.

Method (full detail, worked examples, and the stack map in references/method.md)

First read the venture's business model (Load-first #2) — it selects the treatment in areas 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9. Subscription/SaaS is one archetype, not the default. Then cover all ten areas; for each, name the tool + MCP and flag the CPA/controller judgment point.

1. Model + unit economics — pick the archetype's money model first (subscription MRR/churn/LTV · goods AOV/repeat/contribution-margin · services utilization/rate/realization · marketplace GMV×take-rate), then build the driver-based model + 12-mo P&L off the /offer-architect numbers. Tool: xlsx skill; system of record for actuals (Stripe/commerce/POS/PSA); Airtable (MCP) for the assumptions log.
2. Chart of accounts + bookkeeping method — business-model-conditional numbered COA (base + archetype block: inventory + goods-COGS + fulfillment for goods, WIP + labor-COGS for services, deferred revenue for subscription, seller-payout liability + net-vs-gross for marketplace); accrual (GAAP) as the book of record, cash view for survival. Tool: the ledger's native COA; finance:journal-entry. Flag CPA: accrual-vs-cash election, ASC 606 rev-rec policy (incl. principal-vs-agent), inventory costing method + landed-cost capitalization.
3. Accounting stack (QuickBooks vs Xero) + how it connects — recommend + wire the integration graph (bank feeds, Stripe→ledger, payroll, AP, cards). Tool: QBO/Xero (no first-party MCP connected here — flag to connect); finance:close-management.
4. Revenue: billing / invoicing / AR + revenue→ledger bridge — per archetype: Stripe Billing/Invoicing (subscription), the commerce platform→ledger bridge (A2X) with COGS booked as units ship (goods), milestone/retainer billing + WIP accrual (services), GMV in → take-rate revenue + seller-payout liability (marketplace); AR aging; deferred revenue on prepaid terms. Tool: Stripe / commerce platform / marketplace ledger; finance:reconciliation (payout→bank→GL). Flag CPA: ASC 606 deferral, principal-vs-agent, over-time-vs-point-in-time.
5. AP / expenses / corporate cards — bill pay + card spend + receipt capture + the approval gate. Tool: Ramp/Brex/Bill.com (no MCP here — flag); Airtable (MCP) as the interim approval log. Guardrail: no spend without approval.
6. Payroll + contractors + taxes — payroll + 1099s; sales-tax nexus + taxability (destination-based for tangible goods, varies for SaaS, mostly exempt for services; marketplace-facilitator rules), income, and R&D only if the venture does qualifying research (§41 credit / §174 capitalization — N/A for most goods/services/marketplace). Tool: Gusto/Deel; Anrok (SaaS) / Avalara / TaxJar (goods) for sales tax (no MCP here — flag). Flag CPA + jurisdiction: heaviest review surface in the whole function.
7. Cash / runway / working capital / 13-week cash flow — direct-method rolling 13-week forecast; tax-reserve sweep. Runway = cash ÷ net burn only for asset-light models; for goods (any inventory venture) the survival number is the cash-conversion cycle (DIO+DSO−DPO) and the working-capital gap — cash tied up in stock, PO commitments on the outflow line, runway reported as "cash after funding the next PO." Tool: xlsx skill; revenue system of record + bank inflows + PO/inventory ledger; Airtable (MCP) weekly cash + open-PO log.
8. FP&A: budget vs actual, forecasts — annual budget → monthly BvA → rolling forecast, variances decomposed to drivers. Tool: finance:variance-analysis + xlsx.
9. Board/investor reporting + KPI→P&L link — monthly package: P&L + balance sheet + cash/runway + the KPI-to-revenue bridge in the archetype's money model (subscription MRR→NRR · goods orders×AOV×repeat→contribution margin · services utilization×rate×realization · marketplace GMV×take-rate→net revenue), not a default MRR strip; KPI names must match /metrics-dashboard. Tool: finance:financial-statements; pptx/Canva (MCP) for the deck; Gmail (MCP) draft only.
10. Banking + entity/cap-table touchpoints — operating vs tax-reserve accounts, entity election, cap table, 83(b)/QSBS hand-offs. Tool: Mercury/Relay; Carta/Pulley (no MCP here — flag). Hand off to setup-checklists + legal-pack. Flag CPA + attorney.

Then run the monthly close (sequenced checklist in references/method.md), gated on controller/CPA review before anything is filed or sent.

Output contract

Deliver a venture's finance setup, filled (not a blank template), with these five components:

1. Chart of accounts — the numbered COA table, mapped to the venture's actual revenue lines and cost structure, using the archetype-appropriate blocks (inventory + goods-COGS + fulfillment for goods, WIP + labor-COGS for services, deferred revenue for subscription, seller-payout liability + net-vs-gross for marketplace).
2. The model — driver-based unit economics + 12-month P&L in the archetype's money model (goods contribution-margin/AOV/repeat · subscription MRR/churn/LTV · services utilization/rate/realization · marketplace GMV/take-rate), built from the /offer-architect numbers (deliver as an xlsx workbook when a spreadsheet is warranted).
3. The stack — the function→tool→MCP→status table + the integration graph (how Stripe, the ledger, payroll, cards, and the bank connect), with connect-these flags for anything without an MCP here.
4. The monthly close checklist — the sequenced Day-1..Day-N close, each step tied to its finance:* skill, ending in the CPA/controller review gate.
5. The cash / runway view — current cash, net monthly burn, runway in months, and the rolling 13-week cash-flow view — plus, for goods (any inventory venture), the working-capital / cash-conversion-cycle view (DIO+DSO−DPO, open-PO commitments, "cash after funding the next PO"), since cash ÷ burn alone understates the survival risk. Every judgment point carries an explicit "needs CPA/controller review" flag. State assumptions inline.

Rules

• Read the venture's money model first; SaaS/subscription is one archetype, not the default. The COA, the unit-economics vocabulary, and the cash treatment are all selected from the venture's business model: goods (inventory + goods-COGS + working capital), services (WIP + utilization/realization), marketplace (GMV/take-rate + seller-payout liability), subscription (deferred revenue + MRR). A venture can blend them. Never ship a deferred-revenue/MRR setup for a business that carries inventory.
• Economics before build. Consume /offer-architect's numbers; if the model doesn't close, say so — don't paper over it.
• Accrual is the book of record; cash is survival. Always deliver both a P&L view and a runway/13-week view — never one without the other.
• Not licensed tax/accounting advice. Flag "needs CPA/controller review" at every judgment point (rev-rec, accrual election, nexus, R&D, entity, equity). Name the jurisdiction where it matters.
• No spend without approval; drafts only for anything external (investor updates, filings). Do the reversible setup work to finished; stop only at money, filings, commitments, and sends.
• Secrets in env only — never materialize or echo Stripe keys, bank, or ledger credentials in text, logs, or committed files.
• Clinical, precise voice; banned words out (journey, holistic, guru, revolutionary, game-changer, hack). Never hard-code an industry or a business model.

Examples & evals

• Worked example A (subscription/SaaS) — Executive Edge finance setup (COA + model + stack + close + runway) end-to-end in references/method.md; deliverable in ventures/executive-edge/outputs/finance-setup.md + ee-financial-model.xlsx.
• Worked example B (goods) — a physical DTC brand with subscription refills in references/method.md: inventory + goods-COGS + fulfillment COA, contribution-margin money model, cash-conversion-cycle runway, destination sales tax, §174 marked N/A.
• Graded cases in evals/evals.md (correct archetype selected; economics pulled not re-derived; both P&L + cash delivered; CPA flags present; no-spend/drafts honored).