What this practice is, and what it will not do

1What Kanton-West does not do

Every line here is a limit. They are published because a practice that will not say where it stops has not thought about where it stops.

• Audit. Kanton-West is not a registered auditor and expresses no audit opinion. An audit is done by an auditor registered with IRBA.
• Independent review of its own work, or of any company at a public interest score of 100 or above. Both go elsewhere.
• Financial product advice. No investments, no insurance, no retirement products, no medical schemes. Kanton-West is not a licensed financial services provider under FAIS and gives no product advice of any kind.
• Legal advice and legal opinions. A contract is read for commercial and financial risk. A lawyer reads it for legal risk, and Kanton-West says when one is needed.
• Public officer, director, trustee or signatory of a client entity. Those seats belong to people inside the business.
• Holding or moving client money. No trust account, no bank mandates, no signing authority.
• Guaranteeing an answer a third party gives. A credit committee, SARS and a central bank each decide their own outcome. Kanton-West decides the quality of what goes in front of them, and says in advance what it expects the answer to be.
• Bookkeeping capture at CFO rates. Where a ledger has to be rebuilt, it is quoted separately at what that work is worth.
• Filing returns. Kanton-West is an advisory practice. The tax position is worked out and set here, in writing. The submission itself sits with your accountant or your own eFiling profile.
• Lodging with the Reserve Bank. Your bank is the authorised dealer and your bank is the party that lodges. What the transaction has to look like before it will go, and what the bank and the Financial Surveillance Department will require, is worked out and set here, in writing, first.
• Anything outside the registrations set out above.

2One person, and what that means

Kanton-West is one person. There is no second consultant and no bench, and this page will not pretend otherwise. What that means in practice is written into every engagement.

Your files live with you. Every model, schedule, register and working paper is built in your systems, or delivered to your storage in native editable form. Excel, not PDF. Nothing is locked inside a Kanton-West template or a subscription you do not control. Ask for the current file set at any time and it is with you inside two working days.

Every engagement carries a handover file. It is kept from the first month, not written at the end. Where each model sits, what feeds it, what the covenants are, what is due to whom and when, who the bank contact is, and what is still open. It is written so that a competent financial manager or your own accountant can pick the work up without me.

Thirty days notice, either way. After the first three months there is no tie-in, no cancellation fee and no minimum. If Kanton-West cannot serve you, the notice runs from this side too, and the handover file goes with it.

Six clients at a time. Kanton-West holds a maximum of six retained clients. When the six are full, the next enquiry is told so, and told when a seat is expected. The cap is there so that no client is competing for the same week.

Two weeks a year the practice is closed. The dates go to every client at the start of the year, and again thirty days before.

3Terms, CFO advisory

Fee basis

R14 500 a day, excluding VAT. Half day R8 500. Quoted in days, invoiced in days worked, whole and half days only.

Minimum engagement

One day

The Finance Inspection

Fixed fee, fixed scope, payable before the work starts. Credited in full against the first month of a retainer that starts within sixty days.

Retainer

A named number of days each month, minimum one. Invoiced monthly in advance. Unused days carry one month forward and no further.

Minimum term

Three months, then month to month

Notice

Thirty days either side after the first term. No cancellation fee, no tie-in.

Client cap

Six retained clients at a time

Scope changes

Quoted before they are started. Nothing is done first and billed afterwards.

Your records

Delivered in native editable form and owned by you. A handover file is kept from the first month.

Confidentiality

A mutual non-disclosure agreement is offered before any records change hands, at no charge.

Liability

Limited to the fees paid for the engagement in question. Stated here because it is in the engagement letter, not instead of it.

Payment

Invoiced monthly, due within 14 days

VAT

Excluded where applicable

4Where Kanton-West stops and your accountant carries on

Kanton-West does not replace your accountant and does not want to. Most owner-run businesses need both, and they need each to stay in its lane.

Your accountant keeps the annual financial statements, the audit or independent review where one is required, the annual returns and the CIPC filings, and the relationship they have built with you.

Kanton-West takes the decisions between those events. What the tender should be priced at. Whether that facility should be signed. What the covenant does in month nine. Whether the structure across the border works. What the month actually says.

Neither signs the other's work. Kanton-West does not review or sign off financial statements that Kanton-West prepared, and where an audit or an independent review is required it goes to your accountant or an auditor, with everything they need to do it faster.

Your accountant is copied. By default every management pack, model and finding goes to your accountant at the same time it goes to you, unless you say otherwise. They should not hear about a change in your business from you in February.

5Contact

Fransua van der Westhuizen, Owner and Principal.
fransua@kantonwest.com
+27 83 480 9301
Cape Town, South Africa

A call or an email on a working day is answered. Where the answer needs work behind it, that is said, with a date.