PRACTICE · MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
Two companies. Two GLs. One measured integration.
The audit discipline, pointed at a deal, for the acquiring company’s CFO or controller. Unwrapped inventories, maps, validates, reconciles and orchestrates, from data-room access to the first close you report as one company. ERP implementation stays with your implementation team. Scope and fee are confirmed after a discovery call.
PRE-CLOSE
Systems & Process Diligence
What you are actually buying, operationally: the target’s full stack and contract inventory (renewal traps included), a process-maturity read on their finance operation, an integration cost estimate with honest ranges, a Day-1 readiness register, and the red-flag memo your deal team reads first. Scope, fee and start conditions are set in the SOW; the clock starts at kickoff.
POST-CLOSE
Integration Audit & Roadmap
Every system on both sides gets a keep/kill/converge verdict with duplicate spend quantified when a documented cancellation or consolidation is possible. Plus the CoA crosswalk assessment, a process collision map ranked by risk, and a 90-day roadmap sequenced Day-1 → first consolidated close → Day-100, with the TSA register attached.
EXECUTION
Integration Execution — a 3–6 month retainer arc
The roadmap, run with the library: contract harvester (Nº19), CoA & master-data mapping — proposed, never auto-merged (Nº20), migration reconciliation where no wave closes on “looks right” (Nº21), a dual-close bridge so reporting never goes dark (Nº22), and program orchestration scored against the original deal math (Nº23).
NEXT DEAL
The playbook stays with your team
The census, the crosswalks and the tie-out rules are documented as a playbook your controller owns. It can inform the next acquisition; reuse depends on system fit and data quality, and each engagement gets its own scope and fee.
2 of everything
ILLUSTRATIVE TWO-COMPANY SYSTEMS INVENTORY
Tie-out
AGREED TOLERANCES, TRACED SAMPLES, AND EXPLICIT ACCEPTANCE BEFORE RELEASE
Day 100
READOUT AGAINST THE ORIGINAL DEAL MATH — THE BASELINE DOESN’T MOVE
Nobody needs to manufacture the urgency: the TSA end date and the first consolidated close are already on your calendar. The plan puts them on one page with the assumptions attached.
Every engagement here starts the same place.
Unwrapped inventories, maps, validates, reconciles and orchestrates. It does not move money, post to the general ledger, contact your customers, build chatbots or act as an ERP implementer. Each design names its review points and a checker who did not write the prompt.
DEAL WORK REQUIRES A SIGNED SCOPE, APPROVED DATA HANDLING AND CONFIDENTIALITY BOUNDARIES · SCOPE AND FEE CONFIRMED AFTER A DISCOVERY CALL · OPERATING COMPANIES ONLY — INVESTMENT FIRMS ARE NOT CLIENTS
THE LETTER · BY PAUL MATTSON
Dated. Signed.
Every figure sourced.
One finding about AI in owner-led companies, every two weeks, with the number that held and the number that didn’t.