Context
An offline vocal school with roughly 2 million roubles of revenue across the Moscow and Dubai markets in 2024 and 200 students, going 300–400 thousand roubles into the red every three months. In four weeks we moved it from firefighting to process: management reporting assembled from the bank and the CRM, unit economics calculated, dashboards and a payment calendar brought up to date.
The result: instead of a loss, roughly +700 thousand roubles of free cash a month and visibility of the money 8–12 weeks ahead.
Diagnostic
We went into the bank and the CRM and found the picture typical of a small business:
- One current account where school money, personal transfers and the owners’ second small business were all mixed together
- No reporting, only scattered exports
- Cash spending disappearing from the books
- Discounted packages inflating revenue while eating the margin
- No payment calendar, visibility horizon of 0–7 days
Our four-week plan
-
Week 1
Clearing the backlog
Exported a year of bank statements and tagged 2,000+ transactions. Cut personal spending and the second business away from school money. Rebuilt a clean Cash Flow and P&L by month
-
Week 2
Tying revenue to the product
Connected the CRM to an Excel model. Split revenue into packages, single lessons and gift certificates. The first current dashboard of cash flows and obligations appeared
-
Week 3
Unit economics without self-deception
Average check 9,800 ₽, margin 47%. Found the black hole: discounted packages lifted utilisation but took the profit. Introduced a market ceiling on discounts and a floor price
-
Week 4
Automation and rules
- Opened a separate current account and moved the school onto it
- Set up automatic loading of statements into Looker Studio
- Launched a Telegram bot: any cash expense only against a photo of the receipt
- Introduced a prepayment and cancellation policy: 100% prepayment, rescheduling 12–24 hours ahead
- Fixed a ladder of teacher rates, 40–55% of the lesson, rising with high utilisation
What changed in how the school is run
- Separated the flows. Personal money and the other business on their own, the school on its own account
- Sorted out the discount policy. Promotions no longer squeeze the gross margin
- Room utilisation. Target 70–80% occupancy, weekly KPIs on slots and repeat sales
- Marketing mix by ROMI. More word of mouth and UGC, local search and retargeting to the warm base; paid traffic only above the payback threshold. That became clear from the unit economics
- Minimum balance. A reserve of at least one month of payroll plus taxes
- Payment calendar, 8–12 weeks. Weekly update in 30–45 minutes instead of 5–7 hours of collecting data from every source
Management can open the report at any moment, drill into the categories and see where the money went
Interested?
Let’s talk!
On a call we go through the goals your company has right now and work out where we can help you grow
Let’s meet 30 minutes