When private equity firms invest and acquire a company, they are already thinking about their exit strategy. Every stage post-investment is about improving and growing the company to make a sizable ROI upon exit.
However, exits fail in diligence, not negotiation. Today’s buyers demand audit-clean, segmentation-level numbers and penalize gaps with valuation cuts or busted deals.
To protect value, you must be exit-ready 18 months out: lock the close, standardize KPIs, and document controls so answers are immediate. That’s where Consero comes in.
Here’s how we prepare portfolio companies to exit.
What Consero Does
From onboarding, we build an exit-ready finance function:
- Map and define all accounting processes.
- Create procedure documents.
- Document accounting policies and controls.
This documentation keeps books clean, consistent, and always audit- and diligence-ready.
We then augment or run the finance team to remove bottlenecks. In the first 30–60 days, we stabilize close, reporting, and controls, and support any funding event—exits, audits, or acquisitions—with accurate, “buttoned-up” financials that support higher valuations.
After the Exit
There are three typical scenarios:
- Buyer keeps Consero. After seeing disciplined, cost-effective operations during diligence, the acquirer retains Consero rather than building in-house.
- Buyer has its own stack. With 60 days’ notice, we migrate data to the buyer’s systems with minimal effort required from them.
- Buyer keeps the Consero stack. We flip to direct billing, and the new accounting team operates in our systems.
Here’s how it looks in practice.
Insurity Integrates 3 Rollups Before Profitable Exit
Insurity, a $200M software and services provider backed by TA Associates, approached an exit with fragmented finance operations: an unoptimized NetSuite, order-to-cash bottlenecks, manual revenue recognition, and separate ledgers for each acquisition that slowed consolidation.
High turnover and no FP&A cadence or clear recurring-revenue metrics deprived leaders of reliable, segmentation-level reporting and analytical views for corporate (CRO, G&A) and product owners.
To be exit-ready, Insurity needed unified systems and trustworthy, consistent metrics.
What We Did (FaaS)
- Assigned a dedicated finance pod (VP Finance oversight, Controller leadership) with weekly steering alongside the PE team.
- Re‑architected NetSuite for multi‑entity, product, and corporate views; integrated Bill.com, BlackLine, and SIMPL dashboards.
- Deployed a roll‑up playbook: standardized chart of accounts, close checklist, and a repeatable template to load new entities in <90 days.
- Realigned KPIs: hard‑line ARR, gross margin, and product P&Ls with live dashboards for CRO, product owners, and G&A.
Results
- 3 rollups integrated.
- Diligence and audit‑ready in 90 days.
- Successful exit to GI Partners.
- 37% cost reduction vs. prior in‑house model, supporting higher enterprise value.
- Time to optimization: 90 days vs. 12–18 months in‑house
Flywheel Gets Exit‑Ready Finance in 21 Days
Flywheel, an $18M SaaS company backed by Five Elms Capital, had outgrown its finance function. Accounting sat with a single person on QuickBooks who also handled payroll and benefits manually.
With limited local talent and a 6–12 month timeline to rebuild in-house, Flywheel needed a rapid, turnkey finance operation to reach audit and diligence readiness.
What We Did (FaaS)
- Stood up a full finance function: US‑based VP Finance plus Controller‑level support offshore.
- Implemented a modern tech stack and documented processes end‑to‑end.
- Ran audit support and handled investor requests with a 24‑hour response standard.
Results
- Implementation completed in 21 days (vs. 6–12 months in‑house).
- CFO time on accounting reduced to ~30 minutes/day, enabling focus on value creation.
- Audit passed despite mid‑year takeover of the books.
- Diligence handled at speed during a capital raise and an unsolicited acquisition by WP Engine.
- Continuity post‑acquisition: Consero remained in place alongside the acquirer’s finance team.
Get Exit Ready with Consero
Consero builds audit‑clean, KPI‑tight finance operations for portfolio companies that accelerate diligence, protect value, and de‑risk the exit in weeks, not quarters.
Want to discuss your timeline? Let’s talk.
