# Standardising revenue policies for a buy-and-build exit

> A private-equity-backed professional services group · Private Equity

Standardised revenue-recognition, work-in-progress and fee policies unified a multi-entity professional services group's reporting, simplifying integration and preparing it for exit.

## What was the problem?

A professional services group built through a buy-and-build strategy, spanning services from tax to HR, was preparing for exit. Successive acquisitions had left disconnected entities on disparate systems, making consistent historical revenue reporting, and therefore a clean due-diligence process, difficult. Robust group-level revenue reporting was essential to a successful sale.

## What did QuantSpark do?

QuantSpark developed standardised policies across three areas: revenue recognition, work-in-progress management, and fee structure. Revenue recognition was aligned to a 'good production' basis reflecting billable work completed each month; work-in-progress gained a consistent framework for tracking, review and provisioning; and fee structures were grouped so each business unit ran only a small number of billing methods. The common framework allowed two years of historical revenue from disparate entities to be mapped into a single group-level view aligned with the future-state design.

## What changed?

The number of revenue policies fell to an average of four per business unit, using only two billing and revenue-recognition methods, sharply simplifying financial management and reporting. The unified framework strengthened due diligence by giving potential buyers clear, comprehensive financial data, while also improving cash-flow management, financial transparency and operational efficiency ahead of exit.

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Canonical page: https://quantspark.ai/case-studies/professional-services-revenue-policy-standardisation
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