Practical tools for running real businesses.

Bring price, costs and margin together to see the commercial outcome of a purchase or a sale, and the most you can pay and still hit your target.

See how physical coffee, contracts and market movement sit against each other, so you know whether you are long, short or covered.

Match available coffee against contract commitments, grade by grade, and see at once what is covered, what is short and what is still free to sell.

Take a period of trading from sales down through direct costs and running costs, see what is left at each step, and find out what it would take to reach the margin you want.

Split fixed cost from the cost of a sale, find the point at which the business stops losing money in sales and in money, and see three separate ways to reach it: sell more, charge more, or spend less.

Roll your cash forward month by month, with the one-off payments that are coming carried in the months they fall, and see when the business runs short, what a bad quarter does to that, and what it would take to hold the runway you want.

Bring stock, debtors and creditors together to see the cash locked into the operating cycle and how many days it takes to come back, then price what collecting sooner, holding less stock or longer supplier terms would each release.

Roll stock forward from today at the rate it sells, land every delivery already on order on its own date, and see when this line runs out, when the next order has to be placed, how much to order and what it would cost.

Take contract value, cost to date and cost to complete, and see the margin the project is heading for rather than the one it was priced at.

Lay what the client is expected to pay against what the work costs, month by month, and see which months the project funds itself, which it does not, and how much working capital it needs to get through.

Take a variation's expected value against everything delivering it costs, including the days it adds to the programme, and see what it leaves of the project's margin approved, and what it exposes you to if the work proceeds first.