Beverage Manufacturing · Growth
Accounting infrastructure rebuilt at a critical inflection point
Fast-Growth Beverage Co-Manufacturer
Accounting Infrastructure Rebuild at a Critical Inflection Point
Industry: Beverage Manufacturing — Co-Packing (Alcoholic & Non-Alcoholic) Structure: Founder-operated, active debt and equity financing Engagement: March – April 2026
The Problem
This company was at the most consequential moment in its history: a 5x capacity expansion into a new $70M facility, a $7.5M term loan, active equity raises, and $5M–$10M in equipment leases — all happening simultaneously.
The books weren't ready for any of it.
A prior outsourced bookkeeping firm had left the accounting in poor shape. Bank reconciliations were being done in external Excel files instead of inside QuickBooks, effectively running two sets of books. Fixed assets were tracked on a manual schedule with inconsistent methodology applied year over year. Deferred revenue had no systematic schedule. The entire close process depended on the CEO — who was working 80-hour weeks — providing transaction clarity he often couldn't find time for.
Then there was the lender issue. The original loan underwriting had failed to account for significant lease payments in the covenant calculations. A compliance problem surfaced, the financial review was delayed 30 days, and a refinancing was needed — ideally a $7M–$15M facility with 12–18 months of interest-only payments to preserve cash during the facility ramp-up.
A fractional CFO had just been brought in. He needed infrastructure he could actually operate from.
The Work
I came in alongside the fractional CFO to correct what the prior bookkeeper had left behind and build forward-looking systems in parallel.
Financial Reporting Package
Built a live Excel workbook connected to QuickBooks Online — income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement generated directly from the GL, with a monthly period filter and a chart of accounts mapping tab for custom reporting adjustments. Partner equity accounts were consolidated per the CEO's direction. Hosted on SharePoint and provisioned to both the fractional CFO and the CEO.
Fixed Asset Register and Depreciation Correction
The prior manual depreciation schedule had assigned useful lives inconsistently across assets and years, compounding into a ~$40,000 accumulated depreciation discrepancy. I rebuilt the fixed asset register from scratch — correct useful lives, consistent methodology, clean depreciation schedule going forward. The correcting entry was booked in March. The register now produces the monthly depreciation schedule as a direct input to the financial package, with no manual calculation step.
Deferred Revenue Schedule
The company's revenue model is run-based: customers pay in advance, revenue recognizes when the production run closes. There was no systematic schedule — recognition was manual and inconsistent. I built a deferred revenue schedule tracking each invoice against its production run, generating a monthly journal entry for human review before booking in QuickBooks. The same architecture was applied to prepaids.
Balance Sheet Reconciliation Framework
Three accounts had been historically unreliable: unearned revenue, fixed assets, and prepaids. I built independent Excel schedules as the source of truth for each — sub-ledgers maintained outside QuickBooks, monthly adjusting journal entries generated from each schedule, feeding into the financial package as reconciled inputs.
Bank Reconciliation Process Correction
The accounting team was performing bank reconciliations in external Excel workbooks, bypassing QuickBooks' native bank rec module entirely. This created a second set of books and made a clean cash position impossible to produce. All bank recs were moved inside QuickBooks, and the accounting team was coached on the correct process.
Financing Support
Facilitated introductions to an equipment financing partner to support the capital raise alongside the refinancing process.
Outcomes
A $40,000 depreciation error identified and corrected. Inconsistent methodology had compounded across years undetected. The corrected register established a reliable baseline and a clean process going forward.
The close process was systematized. Three historically unreliable balance sheet accounts now have independent schedules, monthly journal entries, and a direct feed into the financial package. The fractional CFO inherited a process, not a mess.
A new controller stepped in cleanly. She walked into a materially cleaner environment than what existed six weeks prior — working financial package, corrected fixed asset register, systematic deferred revenue schedule, and bank recs back inside QuickBooks.
Financing introductions facilitated to support the capital structure alongside the term loan refinancing.
Why It Mattered
This company was turning down work it couldn't yet fulfill, with a facility expansion that would make it highly profitable once operational. The books — covenant issues, manual processes, no reporting package — were the only thing standing between them and the capital they needed.
The work done here was corrective, not glamorous. But getting the books clean, the close systematized, and the reporting package operational was exactly what the fractional CFO needed to operate, what the lender needed to see, and what the incoming controller needed to take over.
Infrastructure built for the inflection point. Not after it.
Engagement Lead: Michael Cohen Stack: QuickBooks Online · Power Query · Excel · SharePoint
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