Your first real finance stack. Set up once, runs forever.
One-time setup for early-stage startups outgrowing spreadsheets. QuickBooks or Xero, Ramp or Brex, Gusto payroll, ROAS/CAC/burn dashboards, monthly close SOPs, and bookkeeper handoff. $6.5K flat fee, 4-6 weeks, zero ongoing engagement required.
You’ve outgrown your personal Chase account and Excel.
You started lean. Personal credit card for ad spend, Excel for bookkeeping, an LLC formed on a Friday night. That worked for the first six months. Then you raised a friends-and-family round, hired a contractor, ran your first $5K Meta campaign, and suddenly you have transactions in five places and zero confidence in any number.
The bookkeeper you tried to hire told you the books are too messy and quoted three months of cleanup work before they’d touch the monthly cadence. The investor who put in $50K has been politely asking about your runway for three weeks. You can’t tell them — because you don’t know your burn rate, your CAC is theoretical, and your ROAS is whatever the Meta dashboard says minus the discount on Stripe minus the agency fee divided by a vibes-based estimate.
Lean Finance Stack Setup solves this in 4-6 weeks with one fixed fee. By the time we hand off to your bookkeeper, you have real numbers, real dashboards, and a monthly close checklist. You can answer “what’s our runway” in under 30 seconds.
Nine components, one fixed price.
- QuickBooks Online or Xero setupFull configuration with a startup-appropriate chart of accounts. Bank feeds connected, opening balances reconciled.
- Ramp / Brex / Rho corporate cardSet up, integrated with accounting, default coding rules configured. Auto-categorization handles ~80% of transactions.
- Gusto payroll setupEmployee + contractor onboarding, state registrations, benefits-ready (when you add them). Auto-syncs to accounting.
- Stripe / payment processorConnected to accounting with revenue recognition rules. Refunds, chargebacks, payout reconciliation all flowing cleanly.
- ROAS dashboardGoogle Ads, Meta, LinkedIn ad spend mapped to revenue with channel-level contribution margin. Updated weekly.
- CAC + burn dashboardCustomer acquisition cost by channel, payback period, monthly burn rate, runway projection. Single page, refreshes itself.
- Monthly close checklistStep-by-step SOP your bookkeeper follows every month. Eliminates “what was that transaction” confusion.
- Finance SOPsDocumented workflows: expense approval, vendor onboarding, expense reports, end-of-month close. Written for non-finance people to follow.
- Bookkeeper handoffEither your existing bookkeeper trained on the new system, or we introduce you to vetted bookkeeping firms. You contract directly.
Built for the ad-heavy, just-raised, just-hired moment.
You’re a great fit if…
- You’re early-stage: pre-Seed to early Series A, $0-$1M ARR.
- You run paid acquisition (e-commerce, D2C, B2B SaaS with paid pipeline) and need to track ROAS rigorously.
- You just raised a friends-and-family or pre-Seed round and need real books for the next investor conversation.
- You’re outgrowing the personal-Chase + Excel + cocktail-napkin stack.
- You want this set up once correctly so you don’t have to think about it for the next 12 months.
You’re probably not a fit if…
- You already have a clean QuickBooks/Xero file and just need ongoing support. Use Scale-Ready Reporting instead.
- You’re pre-product, pre-revenue. You don’t have enough transactions yet to need this.
- You want ongoing finance leadership, not just setup. Use Fractional CFO instead.
- You’re a fundraise away. Raise-Ready Sprint covers fundraise prep specifically.
Four steps over 4-6 weeks.
Discovery call
Current state, tool preferences, timeline. We map your stack and identify which tools to keep, replace, or add.
Tool selection
QuickBooks vs. Xero, Ramp vs. Brex, Gusto setup. We make recommendations and you approve before purchase.
Setup sprint
Weeks 2-4: tool configuration, data migration, integrations, dashboard build. We do the work; you provide access.
Handoff
Weeks 5-6: SOPs documented, your team trained, bookkeeper onboarded or introduced. End-of-engagement walkthrough.
Flat $6.5K. Includes all nine components.
Lean Finance Stack is a one-time fixed-fee engagement. No ongoing commitment, no monthly retainer. You pay once, you get the system, your bookkeeper runs it from there. Variants below for cleanup work or expanded scope.
Standard Setup
Full nine-component setup for clean start. Best for early-stage teams starting from scratch or close to it.
Cleanup Variant
For teams with existing QuickBooks/Xero that’s a mess. Includes historical reclassification, chart-of-accounts restructure, reconciliation gap fixes.
Setup + 90-Day Support
Standard setup plus 90 days of post-handoff support: monthly check-ins, Slack access, course-corrections as the team learns the system.
Stack setup questions, answered.
Do you become our bookkeeper afterward?
No. Lean Finance Stack is a one-time setup. We hand off to your existing bookkeeper or, if you don’t have one, we introduce you to vetted bookkeeping firms we trust (typically $300-$800/month depending on transaction volume). Our role is the architecture and SOPs; your bookkeeper handles the monthly cadence.
Can we use Xero instead of QuickBooks?
Yes. We work in both. QuickBooks Online is the U.S. default; Xero is stronger for LATAM businesses and tends to have cleaner UX. We’ll recommend based on your specific situation (your accountant’s preferences, your country, your future-state complexity).
What if we already have QuickBooks but it’s broken?
Common scenario. We can do a cleanup pass: restructure the chart of accounts, reclassify historical transactions, fix reconciliation gaps, and set up the cadence going forward. If the existing data is too corrupted, sometimes the right call is to start fresh in a new file — we’ll tell you honestly which is cheaper. The cleanup variant typically prices at $6.5K-$10K depending on history complexity.
Do you integrate Mercury / Brex / other fintechs too?
Yes. Mercury, Brex, Ramp, Rho, and traditional bank integrations all included. We set up the data flows so transactions auto-sync to QuickBooks/Xero with clean categorization. Most clients are surprised how much manual data entry this eliminates.
What’s the difference vs. Ramp’s free setup?
Ramp’s free setup configures Ramp itself, beautifully. It does not configure QuickBooks, Gusto, your chart of accounts, your ROAS dashboard, or your finance SOPs. Lean Finance Stack is the full integrated system — Ramp is one component of it. If you only need Ramp itself set up, take Ramp’s free help.
How long does this take?
4-6 weeks from kickoff to handoff. Week 1: discovery + tool selection. Weeks 2-4: setup, data migration, integrations, dashboards. Weeks 5-6: SOP documentation, bookkeeper handoff, your team trained on the cadence.