Completion-Accounts Working-Capital Diligence Director

The mandate

The proposed acquisition price adjusts for completion working capital, yet monthly balances swing with harvest cycles, promotional buys and customer rebates. Supplier consignment and receivables factoring blur economic ownership, while management’s target average includes a stock build that will not recur. The buyer needs precise definitions, a defensible peg and evidence routes before drafting hardens.

The eight-week deliverable comprises a normalised working-capital analysis, completion-account schedule and dispute-ready source book. Milestone one closes balance and definition mapping in week two; milestone two establishes seasonality and operating drivers in week four; milestone three resolves rebate, consignment, factoring and cut-off cases in week six; milestone four delivers peg ranges and negotiation sensitivities.

The client will provide monthly trial balances, inventory snapshots, supplier and customer terms, rebate schemes, consignment records, factoring statements, aged ledgers, cash receipts and draft mechanics from counsel. Acceptance requires each proposed line to map to source and definition, seasonality to reconcile across two cycles, and three cut-off scenarios to reproduce. Deal finance and counsel jointly acknowledge the schedule.

The work excludes drafting legal terms, issuing accounting or tax opinions, conducting physical inventory certification, negotiating price and preparing final completion accounts after closing. Consultants may identify ambiguity and quantify outcomes but cannot determine contractual interpretation. Warehouse access follows target safety and confidentiality requirements.

Models will expose volume, price, days, ageing, ownership, rebate accrual, season and cut-off rather than relying on broad averages. Buyer finance must update one late month and reproduce a seller-proposed classification before acceptance. Post-close calculation or dispute support requires a separate engagement.

Why this is external work

Seller management benefits from a low peg and narrow debt-like definitions, while the buyer faces a short drafting timetable. Food inventory and rebate seasonality make standard balance-sheet averages unreliable. Independent completion-account expertise can turn operating facts into transparent financial ranges without negotiating the agreement. It also creates a source book capable of surviving a later disagreement over cut-off or classification.

What you will own

• Reconcile receivables, inventory, payables, accruals and other working-capital lines to ledger and granular operating source.
• Analyse seasonality by product, harvest, promotion, customer, supplier and warehouse across genuinely comparable periods.
• Determine economic drivers and proposed treatment for consignment, factoring, customer advances and supplier prepayments.
• Rebuild rebate and promotional accruals from earned conditions, submitted claims, settlement history and post-period evidence.
• Test cut-off around goods received, dispatch, returns, spoilage, unbilled sales and unmatched supplier invoices.
• Model peg, line definitions, exclusions, debt-like overlap and purchase-price sensitivity under competing treatments.
• Deliver normalisation book, completion schedule, source index, ambiguity log and negotiation-ready scenarios with value ranges.

Candidate qualifications

• Led completion-account and working-capital diligence for food distribution or another highly seasonal inventory business.
• Rebuilt normal working-capital levels from operating drivers rather than simple monthly or twelve-month averages.
• Resolved consignment, factoring, rebate, advance and cut-off classifications with counsel and transaction-finance teams.
• Traced perishability, spoilage, harvest timing and promotional buying into inventory, receivable and payable economics.
• Quantified purchase-price outcomes without assuming authority to interpret agreement language or negotiate value.
• Delivered dispute-ready source books that buyer teams used independently through drafting, closing and subsequent challenge.

Non-negotiables

• Can complete three warehouse or management visits and four Madrid milestones within eight weeks.
• Will disclose target, seller, buyer, lender, supplier, customer and transaction-adviser relationships.
• Brings seasonal completion-account diligence with physical inventory depth; general balance-sheet review is insufficient.
• Accepts no authority over legal drafting, accounting opinions, physical certification, negotiation or final price.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a working-capital peg you changed after operating seasonality contradicted the headline average.
2. 49 words maximum. Which consignment or factoring evidence determines economic ownership at completion?
3. 49 words maximum. What target data must be available before you accept rebate accrual normalisation?