Services
Three rungs, each a natural step up.
Every engagement is scoped to your account structure, ERP environment, and pricing complexity — which is why fees are quoted after a conversation, not before one. A thirty-minute call establishes scope, and a written proposal follows within twenty-four hours.
Rung 01 — the wedge
Margin Diagnostic
2–3 weeks · fixed fee
A scoped, fixed-fee read of your pricing and cost data. Designed to answer one question honestly: is there recoverable margin here, and is your data good enough to defend going after it?
Scope of work
- Extraction and integrity review of ERP transaction-level cost and revenue data
- Assessment of standard cost currency, overhead absorption logic, and BOM accuracy
- Product- and account-level margin decomposition on your top accounts
- Identification of silently absorbed costs — freight, financing terms, rework, tariff exposure
- Preliminary sizing of the recoverable margin opportunity
- Prioritized action register with an honest read on data readiness
What you receive
- Written diagnostic findings, board- and sponsor-legible
- A working margin decomposition file in your environment
- A go / no-go recommendation on a full framework build
Rung 02 — the build
Pricing Framework Build
8–12 weeks · fixed fee
The engagement the case study proves out. A defensible, SKU-level pricing system built against your actual ERP data and adopted by the people who have to hold the price in the room.
Scope of work
- SKU-level, EBITDA-based volume-break pricing model with a defensible gross margin floor across commitment tiers
- Cost intelligence layer built directly against ERP transaction data — line-level cost and profitability visibility
- Full burdening of supply chain financing, freight, and tariff exposure into price rather than silent absorption
- Scenario architecture: base, low, high, tariff, and supplier-specific cost cases with version control
- Governed ingestion pipeline so the model stays current after the engagement ends
- Implementation support with commercial leadership and the sales organization
What you receive
- An operable pricing system in your environment, owned by your team
- Documentation sufficient to defend the methodology to a board, auditor, or lender
- Negotiation-ready price schedules for the accounts in scope
- Working sessions with the commercial team so the framework survives first contact with a quota
Rung 03 — the annuity
Fractional Commercial Finance
Monthly retainer
Senior commercial finance judgment on retainer. For businesses that need the capability but cannot yet justify — or cannot yet recruit — the headcount.
Scope of work
- Ongoing pricing governance: standard cost update cadence, variance investigation thresholds, approval authority
- Quarterly margin re-forecasting and price-realization tracking against the framework
- Commercial decision support on live deals, renewals, and RFPs
- Board and sponsor reporting on margin performance
- Cost pass-through analysis as raw material, tariff, and FX conditions move
- Coaching for the internal analyst or controller who will eventually own this
Structured to end
The goal of a retainer is to make itself unnecessary. Expect a defined handoff path to an internal owner. A fractional engagement that runs indefinitely without building internal capability is a billing arrangement, not an advisory relationship.
Alternate structures
When a fixed fee is the wrong instrument.
Some engagements do not scope cleanly up front, and some create value that is directly and measurably attributable. These structures exist for those cases, and are discussed on the diagnostic call.
| Structure | Appropriate when |
|---|---|
| Hourly advisory | Open-ended advisory or diagnostic work where scope cannot be fixed in advance. Uncapped, scoped by discovery. |
| Retainer plus success fee | A monthly retainer alongside a share of incremental gross profit in year one. Aligns incentives when the outcome is expected to compound rather than land once. |
| Value share | A share of quantified annual value created. Applied only where attribution is direct, measurable, and agreed in writing before work begins. |
Success and value-share structures require a jointly agreed measurement methodology and baseline documented at engagement start. Cedar Faire will not propose one where attribution would be contested.
Adjacent capability
Sponsor-side diagnostic and governance work
Where a sponsor needs the read before the pricing question is even on the table, Cedar Faire runs early-cycle operational and financial risk work: reserve adequacy across inventory, warranty, AR and accruals; close cadence and chart-of-accounts review; cost structure and overhead absorption clarity; controls and segregation-of-duties gaps; and the governance documentation that makes findings durable rather than decorative.
This work is scoped and quoted separately. A full operational risk assessment typically runs four to eight weeks; a single-site rapid sprint runs two to four. Raise it on the diagnostic call.
Which rung is yours?
Most engagements start at Rung 1, and that is the correct place to start. Thirty minutes on the phone establishes whether there is a real margin opportunity and whether your data can support going after it. A scoped proposal with fees follows within twenty-four hours.