This article is for the chief executive, finance lead or operations lead of a private equity-backed company with fewer than 200 people, and for the operating partner who works alongside them. It covers the company’s own recurring work for its owners: the plan, the monthly numbers, the board papers and the records that will matter at sale.
Most of that work is preparation: gathering exports, tying figures, writing commentary and chasing gaps. A workflow carries how your company does that preparation, so the people who own the numbers spend their time on the decisions.
The first 100 days put the plan and the numbers on one page.
After a deal closes, management and the new owners agree what the company will improve. The hard part is turning that plan into a handful of measures everyone reads the same way, each with a definition, a target and one owner, reported every month from the systems the company already has.
AI prepares the page. It reads the month’s exports, works out each value with its working shown, marks it against your targets and sets every red beside its agreed action. The chief executive and the operating partner choose the measures and the targets, and each owner explains what moved. The operations KPI scorecard workflow template is built for exactly this.
Every month, the close and the pack arrive on time.
A few days before month end, AI lays out the close on one page: every task with its owner and date, and each gap written as a question, such as a task nobody owns. The controller or finance lead approves the plan, and the accounting team still prepares, approves and posts every entry. The month-end close checklist is the template to start from.
Where the company sells services, margin by engagement is often the figure owners ask about first. AI builds one worksheet per engagement from the time export, the fee schedule and your own cost rates, and lists what it cannot yet see. The engagement partner and the finance lead decide any change to staffing or fees. The engagement margin review is the template.
Every board meeting starts from a pre-read built on one decision.
Owner directors want the decision on the first page, the figures against plan in the same order every time, and a cause for every large variance. AI drafts that pre-read from the company’s own reports, lists the questions directors are likely to ask with a draft answer to each, and afterwards drafts the record of what was decided. The chief executive decides what goes to directors and sends it. Start from the board meeting pack.
Between meetings, the owners still want to hear how the month went. The investor update drafts that note in a fixed shape: the headline, the standing figures against plan, cash, problems told plainly and specific asks. The chief executive approves and sends it.
Toward exit, the records a buyer asks for are already in order.
A buyer’s diligence asks for figures that tie to the accounts, measures with stable definitions, explanations for variances and a record of what the board decided. A company that runs the workflows above builds that record as it goes, filing each closed month, scorecard and board record where the next one can find it.
Exit readiness is a habit built from the same monthly workflows. AI flags a measure whose definition changed or a figure that differs from last time. The chief executive and the finance lead decide what is kept, how it is explained and what the company’s advisers see.
The whole rhythm fits in one table.
| Moment | The work | What AI prepares | Who decides | Workflow template |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First 100 days | Turn the plan into measures reported monthly | A one-page scorecard with the working, trends and the action for each red | Chief executive and operating partner set measures and targets; owners explain moves | Operations KPI scorecard |
| Every month | Close the books and assemble the pack | The close plan with its gaps as questions; a margin worksheet per engagement | Finance lead approves the close and the pack; partner and finance lead decide on engagements | Month-end close checklist; engagement margin review |
| Every board meeting | The pre-read, the agenda and the record | A pack built on one decision, likely questions, and a draft record afterwards | Chief executive decides what goes and sends it; the board decides | Board meeting pack; investor update |
| Toward exit | Keep the records a buyer will ask for | A consistent monthly trail, with changed definitions and differing figures flagged | Chief executive and finance lead, with the company’s advisers | A habit built from the monthly templates |
Every template is free to read with a free account. The private equity and portfolios page has every example for portfolio companies.
Here is one month’s pack at an invented services company.
Illustrative example with invented data. Fenmoor Field Engineering, an invented 140-person building-services maintenance company in its second year of private equity ownership.
Fenmoor’s finance lead prepares the October pack for the owners.
- Before month end.She runs the close checklist on the standing task list, the calendar and a note that the payroll accountant is away on day two. It comes back with two questions: the payroll reconciliation has no cover that day, and the bank reconciliation is scheduled before the accruals it depends on. She moves the bank reconciliation to follow the accruals and names a cover for payroll.
- After the close.She hands over the management accounts export, the jobs and visits exports behind the seven agreed measures, each owner’s short note, the time export and fee schedule for the three largest contracts, and the company’s cost rates.
- What comes out.A scorecard with two reds, each beside its agreed action; three margin worksheets, one of which lists subcontractor costs not yet invoiced; and a draft covering note with every figure traced to its report and the open questions first.
- What she checks and decides.She ties every figure on the scorecard and the note to the management accounts. She decides the margin on the contract with uninvoiced costs is shown as partial, with a line saying so, and that the question about it goes to the chief executive before the pack is sent.
The chief executive reads the note, settles the open question and sends the pack. The workflows prepared it; the people who own the numbers decided what it says.
Your company decides who runs which workflow.
In Fully Powered Planner, the company decides which roles get which workflows: the finance lead owns the close and the pack, the operations lead owns the scorecard, the chief executive owns the board papers. The plan shows where work crosses teams.
The workflows run in the AI the company already uses, whether that is ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini, from the exports your team already produces. You keep your platforms, your pace and your people. That is how you get 10X the ROI of your existing AI, on the work your owners read every month.
Bring next month’s pack to a fit call.
Bring next month’s pack and the person who builds it, and we will show you which parts a workflow can prepare first.