Case Study

How an international school in Lisbon built a financial system that runs without a CFO

Clarity International School grew from a single location into a multi-product education business and raised capital for a new campus. Their spreadsheet-based accounting couldn't keep up. I designed the financial infrastructure from scratch: chart of accounts, reporting templates, account registers, and automated analytics.

Education Lisbon, Portugal Fractional Finance Partner 4 months

Context

The starting point

Clarity International School is a private school in Lisbon running two distinct operations: an active education center and a new campus under construction. Multiple legal entities and bank accounts, four revenue streams: the main school, a Saturday school, camps, and extracurricular programs.

When investors came on board and construction kicked off, the old bookkeeping setup fell apart. Everything depended on the founder, data lived in scattered spreadsheets, and there was no real analytics to speak of. Closing the books each month meant days of manual reconciliation. Investors needed transparent reporting, and there was nothing to build it from.

Process

What we did

Four sequential phases: from designing the accounting architecture to handing the system off to the team.

Designed the accounting architecture and analytical dimensions

By project: education center (operations) vs. new campus (construction) -- investment module isolated from day-to-day operations By product: school, Saturday school, camps, extracurricular -- unit economics visible for every revenue stream By account and legal entity: multi-entity structure with clear ownership and responsibility

Standardized data entry and distributed responsibility

Fixed chart of accounts -- no more ad-hoc line item descriptions Standardized input forms for each transaction type Registers split by bank account, each with an assigned owner Built-in balance reconciliation to catch errors early

Automated analytics and reporting

P&L and Cash Flow statements generated automatically from source registers Analytical brief -- the key deliverable: auto-generated charts, tables, and period-over-period comparisons; the manager only needs to add conclusions and commentary

Documentation and handoff

Accounting policy document Video walkthroughs (screencasts) SOPs: who enters what, when, and the period-close checklist

Results

What changed

After 4 months, the project was handed off to the client's team. The system runs autonomously.

ProcessBeforeAfter

Accounting structureScattered spreadsheetsArchitecture with project, product, and account dimensions

Data entryAd-hoc descriptions, all on the founderFixed forms, registers by account, distributed ownership

ControlsNoneBalance checks, account reconciliation

AnalyticsGut feel, no visualizationsAuto-generated charts, tables, period deltas

Analytical briefDidn't existAuto-generated -- manager just adds conclusions

Project accountingConstruction + ops in one potSeparated: education center / new campus

Product accountingNo breakdownEach stream visible: school, camps, extracurricular

DocumentationNoneAccounting policy, video walkthroughs, SOPs

Expert dependencyRequired external consultantsTeam runs the system on their own

Takeaways

Three lessons from this project

Accounting is infrastructure, not a report

Building a system that auto-generates analytics from properly structured source data is an architecture problem. You can't delegate it to a bookkeeper -- it requires deliberate design.

Investment projects need their own perimeter from day one

When construction runs in the same bucket as operations, nobody knows whose money is whose within a month. Separate the ledgers before the first invoice.

Automation starts at input, not output

Data quality is determined by how information enters the system, not by report formulas. Fixed forms, reference tables, and clear ownership over each register -- that's 70% of the work.

"Closing the books used to mean days of manually reconciling spreadsheets. When investors came in and construction started, the old approach completely broke down. Klim designed our accounting architecture: registers split by account, each with an assigned owner, standardized input forms. The analytical brief is generated automatically -- I just add my conclusions. We got transparent numbers for investors and separated the construction budget from school operations. Most importantly, the system works without an external expert."

Alexander, co-founder of Clarity International School