Laminir for finance and the board
Interpret the results. Stop compiling them.
The board pack, assembled from the same figures the business trades on. Profit to EBITDA, cash and working capital, stock at cost and retail, quarter position and risk — every number reconciled, every assumption stated.
Position
Margin discipline is holding. The erosion is operational — a third of everything dispatched is coming back, and the handling cost sits in opex, not in the margin line.
Product margin
75.0%
What the range earns
Achieved margin
71.7%
After returns
Risk register
Refund rate at 37.0% against a 30% target
HighCapital held above the cover ceiling
HighQuarter requires a 5.57× lift on current rate
MedFor the board to decide
Clear at depth now and take the margin hit, or protect margin and carry $2.99M of exposure into Q4. Window closes with the September activations.
Basis of preparation
Operating costs modelled from percentage assumptions, not reported figures.
Every figure reconciled · every assumption stated
Illustrative
The pack takes two days to build and thirty minutes to present.
And most of those two days are spent reconciling figures that should already agree.
The numbers disagree with each other
Trading has one revenue figure, the ledger has another, and the stock number depends on who exported it and when. Half the work is deciding which version goes in the pack.
Margin looks fine until it isn't
Product margin holds while returns quietly take the difference. A single margin line tells a board the range is working when the money says otherwise.
The pack contradicts the weekly read
The executive has been acting on one set of figures all quarter and the board receives another. Nobody set out to produce two versions of the truth, but the assembly makes it inevitable.
What changes
One source, so the board pack and the weekly read agree by construction.
Nothing is rebuilt for the board. The pack is assembled from the figures the business has been trading on all quarter.
Two margins, because they mean different things
Product margin on gross sales — what the range earns when it sells. Achieved margin after returns — the money. A board reading only one of them is reading the wrong business.
Capital, not just inventory
Stock at retail and at cost, cover against ceiling, and the capital held above target that clearance would release. A stock figure is a balance; this is a decision.
Every figure reconciled, every gap disclosed
Category revenue against total sales, markets against the group, cover against the units. Where two figures disagree, the pack says so on the first page.
Why it can be trusted
A missing number is a question. A wrong number is a bad decision.
Every figure is computed before the model sees it. The commentary restates numbers; it never derives them. The same input produces the same answer every time.
Where a figure is modelled rather than reported, the pack says so. Where a group total cannot be produced correctly — a missing exchange rate, an incomplete period — it produces none and shows each market in its own currency instead.
Most board packs fail quietly. This one tells you where it is weak before anyone asks.
Reconciled
Every figure checked against another figure
Disclosed
Modelled figures marked, gaps stated on page one
Attributed
Who prepared it, when, and from what
What you will use
The pack, and everything it is assembled from.
Multi-market
Each market in its own currency. One group position when the rates allow it.
Profit translates at the average rate for the period, stock at the closing rate, and both are stated on the report.
Where a rate is missing, no group total appears. Each market reports in its own currency with a notice on the page rather than a figure nobody can stand behind.
A board pack with a missing total is a question. One with a wrong total is a decision made on a figure nobody checked.
Finance and the board