Michael
Cohen
Financial Operations & Analytics · Data Engineering & Automation
“Finance and analytics, without the overhead.”
Stronger financial operations and analytics through data engineering and automation — for SMBs and PE-backed companies. I sit between finance and data, turning messy business questions into systems that work.
Companies I’ve Worked With
What Clients Say
“100x easier to get the data I need than working in QBO... easy job-to-job comparison, and it’s easy to see the abnormalities within larger projects. Love how we can break down the chart by customer with a simple click.”
— COO, Niche Custom Manufacturer
“This is super powerful stuff, especially when we’re having to consolidate... I know that would be super helpful for a lot of our portfolio companies, especially when it comes to creating efficiency with how we actually view the P&L on a line-item basis rather than GL.”
— PE Associate, Multi-Entity DTC & Wholesale
Industries
Selected Work
View all work →Industrial Automation · PE-Backed
Financial architecture from the ground up
Designed and delivered a full financial architecture program — nightly data warehouse ingestion, operational dashboards, P&L and job cost visibility — on top of existing systems.
5% bottom-line improvement from labor visibility · 7% upside from material cost tracking · Live self-refreshing reporting
Read more →Government Services · E-Commerce
95% faster. $5.8M in revenue impact.
Built Power BI reporting across Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising data, automated financial close with Power Query, and reduced monthly data processing time by 95% — turning scattered inputs into a system leadership could act on.
95% reduction in data processing time · $5.8M in revenue impact · Close cut by 6.5 days per month
Read more →Consumer Goods · PE-Backed · Multi-Entity
Three systems. One clean financial picture.
Connected three fragmented accounting systems into a unified Power BI financial package with automated refresh via Azure VM — delivering PE-ready reporting while navigating a near-term ERP consolidation.
Three entities, two countries, one live-refreshing package · Big 4 QoE reconciliation completed · Three stakeholders aligned on one set of numbers
Read more →Who I Work With
The right fit is specific.
I work best with companies at a financial or operational inflection point — a recent acquisition, a scaling bottleneck, or a reporting environment that’s become a liability. The problem is usually the same: the data exists, the systems exist, but nothing talks to anything else.
Typical Engagements
Retainer
Ongoing monthly engagement — financial operations, reporting, and analytics on a continuous basis.
Project-Based
Defined scope, defined output. Common for system builds, close automation, or dashboard delivery.
Hourly
For focused engagements under 10 hours total — analysis, scoping, or advisory.