Four moments in a hold.
One model the company owns.
You hold, or are buying, a mid-size manufacturer. The operating numbers you were shown came from an ERP read several different ways. We read the ERP directly, define margin, delivery, and inventory once, and build the reporting layer in the company’s own Microsoft tenant, so the same numbers hold in diligence, through the hold, and at exit. Julian Bergquist leads every engagement.
The same model carries through,
and the company owns it at every step.
| Moment | What gets done | What the company holds |
|---|---|---|
| Diligence | Read the target’s ERP and reconcile the numbers in the deck against the transactions behind them. | A graded report and a reconciliation, released as its own officer agrees |
| First hundred days | Stand up the data layer in the company’s tenant, with margin, delivery, and inventory defined once. | The lakehouse, the model, and the definitions |
| The hold | Report every company on the same written definitions, whatever ERP each one runs. | Its own model, read by the sponsor’s roll-up |
| Exit | Hand the next buyer’s analyst a model they can inspect instead of a spreadsheet they have to trust. | An asset that goes with it, whole |
The diligence read is the audit,
pointed at a target.
It runs the same way: walkthrough, reconcile, grade, recommend, in about two weeks at a fixed $3,000. It needs read access to the ERP, arranged through management. It returns a graded report card by module, a reconciliation of where the numbers you were shown diverge from the ERP and why, and a priced recommendation for the build.
It is not a quality of earnings report. It is the data layer under one, and it tells you how much of the operating story can be verified from the system of record. When a sponsor commissions it, the company’s own officer signs the engagement and countersigns release of the finished document, as the conditions require.
- Shown in the deck
- 31.9%
- Read from the ERP
- 31.2%
- Cause
- Deck blends cost at last month’s rates. ERP read on current unit cost.
- Source tables
- Order lines, material and labor transactions, job headers
- Sites included
- Both plants, stated separately and combined
- Reconciled against
- The ERP’s own margin report
- Revision
- REV 1 · 2026-10-14
A portfolio standard
without a portfolio portal.
Portfolio companies do not have to share an ERP. The standard is not a tool. It is a set of written definitions, applied the same way in each company’s own model. A sponsor view reads those models side by side; it does not replace them. When a company is sold, its model goes with it, whole, and the buyer inherits an asset instead of a dependency.
| Number | Written as |
|---|---|
| Margin | One named cost basis, with the job-close rule stated |
| Delivery | One promise date, one tolerance, one rule for partial shipments |
| Inventory | One valuation, by item and by location |
| Quality | Scrap and rework cost by job, part, and work center |
| Capacity | Load against what each work center can run |
The break-even is arithmetic.
Exit proceeds are EBITDA times a multiple. The spend comes off the first term and has to earn its way back on the second. On an $8M EBITDA company at 6×, a $150K model pays for itself at just over a tenth of a turn. Not a forecast and not a valuation. Run your own figures in the exit model, in sponsor mode, and read the argument in The exit math.
Arithmetic, not a forecast.
Start with one company.
Julian Bergquist is the single point of contact and leads every engagement. We sell no ERP, no BI licences, and no portal, and take no commission from anyone who does, so the recommendation can be to do nothing yet. Subcontractors, when a build needs them, are named before the engagement starts. Companies are taken in sequence so the same person writes every definition; the first audit report says how long the next ones would take.
Pick the company whose reports disagree the most, or the one closest to a transaction. If the grade says the data layer is already sound, the report says so, and you have spent $3,000 to know it.
- 01 Walkthrough Documented review of how the ERP is actually used, in the system and in the spreadsheets around it.
- 02 Reconcile Find where margin, delivery, and inventory numbers disagree, and why.
- 03 Grade Report card by module: healthy, misconfigured, abandoned.
- 04 Recommend The next step, priced. You keep the report either way.
- Graded report card by module
- Reconciliation of conflicting numbers
- Priced recommendation
- On-site option, priced by size and location
Or write to hello@mfg-analytics.com. We reply with a short intake and two or three session times.
A sponsor needs one thing from the data: the same answer in the deck, in the board pack, and in the buyer’s diligence room. I get there by reading the ERP rather than the deck, writing each definition down, and leaving the model with the company that will be sold. Nothing of mine stays running in the middle.
Julian Bergquist · Principal, MFG Analytics · About the practice