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Business coaching · Malta
Numbers-First Management is finance-led business coaching for Maltese SMEs. A yearly plan, quarterly priorities, a handful of weekly numbers and one fixed weekly meeting, all built from your own accounts by a Warranted Accountant.
Daniel Mercieca, Warranted Accountant
Your coach is the accountant who reads your numbers.
Start with one conversation
30 minutes, free. You speak to Daniel, not a call centre.
Finance-led business coaching helps an owner run the business from its financial numbers first, then builds the planning and meeting routine around them. At DM Accounting it follows a framework called Numbers-First Management: a one-page Year Map, three to five Quarter Commitments every 13 weeks, ten to fifteen Weekly Dials, a Money Engine that shows what each job or sale really earns, and one 90-minute Weekly Table meeting. It is led by Daniel Mercieca, a Warranted Accountant in Malta.
The problem
Most owners of Maltese SMEs find out how the year went when the year-end accounts arrive, when it is too late to change anything. By then a bad quote, a rising cost or a slow-paying customer has been costing money for months.
I am a Warranted Accountant and I see business owners' numbers every month. Numbers-First Management is the routine I built around that: a way to turn the figures you already pay for into decisions, every week.
Work is coming in and everyone is stretched, yet the bank balance does not reflect it.
Your managers bring you problems, not numbers. You are the bottleneck and the safety net.
There was a target in January. Nobody can say in June whether you are on track.
Lots of talk, few decisions, and the same issues come back next week.
The book
I am writing Numbers-First Management up as a book, one chapter at a time. Part 1 covers the 11 pains owners of Maltese businesses raise most often: why each one happens, what it costs with a worked example, a two-minute self-check, and which part of the framework fixes it. Part 2 explains each part of the framework in depth.
See the map: which tool fixes which pain →
Definition
Finance-led business coaching means coaching an owner to run the business starting from its financial numbers, then building the management routine around them, rather than starting from vision, values or personality.
A regular structure where someone helps you plan, track and decide. Not a motivational talk, and not a report you file away.
The starting point is your real accounts: what you earn, what each job or sale leaves over, and where the cash goes.
A yearly plan, quarterly priorities and a weekly meeting, set up so that those numbers drive decisions all year.
Operations talks in hours and deliveries, sales in quotes and customers. Money is the measure that connects them.
In a thin-margin business that is backwards. If you do not know what a job or a cover earns, a vision has nothing to stand on.
The books exist for VAT returns and annual financial statements. This approach reuses the same data, monthly and weekly, for decisions.
A tight labour market, high rents and seasonal swings, especially in tourism and hospitality, mean margin errors compound quickly.
The framework
Six parts connect the yearly plan to the weekly meeting. The Money Engine sits underneath and explains where profit comes from. The Weekly Dials feed the Weekly Table every week. Every 13 weeks a Quarter Day closes the loop.
Each part answers one question. Together they give you a business that can tell you, every week, whether it is on track and what to do if it is not.
Quarter Day (part 6), one full day every 13 weeks, reviews the results, resets the commitments and updates the Year Map.
Where are we going this year, in numbers?
One page that starts from last year's actual results, not a wish, and chains the targets: revenue, gross margin, overheads, profit and cash.
Rule: every target must map to a weekly number. Otherwise it is a wish.
Read the Year Map chapter →What must be true by the end of this quarter?
Three to five priorities that move the Year Map. Each has one named owner and a clear done or not-done finish line at the end of the 13 weeks.
Rule: if everything is a priority, nothing is.
Read the Quarter Commitments chapter →Are we on track right now?
Ten to fifteen numbers, each with one owner and one target. Operations and sales hold most of them, because they are the people who can move them. A first version can start with as few as eight.
Rule: a number nobody owns is a number nobody moves.
Read the Weekly Dials chapter →Where does our profit come from, and where does it leak?
A model of how your business actually makes money, at the level of the single sale or job. This is the part most coaching frameworks leave out, and it is where an accountant adds the most.
For high-volume businesses: restaurants, retail, clinics. Profit per cover, sale or appointment.
For project-based businesses: installers, contractors, agencies. Quoted versus actual margin, job by job.
What must we decide this week?
One fixed meeting: same day, same time, same agenda, every week. It is short on reporting and long on solving.
Rule: most of the 90 minutes belongs to the Fix List.
Read the Weekly Table chapter →What did we learn, and what comes next?
One full day, away from the daily noise, four times a year.
Rule: the plan is only as good as the last time it was updated.
Read the Quarter Day chapter →A people module on role fit: whether the right person owns each number and each commitment. It plugs into the same rhythm without changing it.
Worked example
A fictional Maltese installer with 12 staff, used to show the arithmetic behind a Year Map. Each figure is marked as an actual (from the books), an assumption (a number chosen) or a calculated result.
| Line | Workings | Result | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last year revenue | From the books | €1,200,000 | Actual |
| Last year gross profit | 1,200,000 × 28% | €336,000 | Calculated |
| Last year overheads | From the books | €300,000 | Actual |
| Last year profit | 336,000 − 300,000 | €36,000 | Calculated |
| Target revenue | 1,200,000 × 1.10 (10% growth) | €1,320,000 | Assumption |
| Target gross profit | 1,320,000 × 31% (31% margin) | €409,200 | Assumption |
| Target overheads | 300,000 × 1.05 (5% rise) | €315,000 | Assumption |
| Target profit | 409,200 − 315,000 | €94,200 | Calculated |
Profit improves by 94,200 − 36,000 = €58,200. The 3-point margin gain alone is worth 1,320,000 × 3% = €39,600, about two-thirds of the improvement. Fixing quotes and job overruns beat selling more. That is exactly what the Money Engine and the Weekly Dials are designed to find.
Change the figures to see where your profit improvement would come from. Nothing you type leaves this page.
Profit is shown before tax. Illustrative only, not advice for your business.
How it compares
Most owners have tried at least one of these. Here is where finance-led coaching differs.
| Numbers-First Management | Typical business coaching | Year-end accountant only | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting point | Last year's actual accounts | Often vision, goals or mindset | Compliance deadlines |
| How often you see your numbers | Every week | Varies | Once a year |
| Profit per job, sale or customer | Built in (Money Engine) | Rarely covered | Not covered |
| Who owns the numbers | Operations and sales managers | Usually the owner | The accountant |
| Meeting rhythm | Weekly 90 minutes + quarterly day | Sessions with the coach | None |
| Led by | A Warranted Accountant | A generalist coach | An accountant |
Who it is for
Your coach
I am a Warranted Accountant with a background in hotel accounting, external audit and financial consulting. I built Numbers-First Management because I kept seeing the same thing: good owners running good businesses on instinct, because the numbers arrived a year too late to help. When you call, you speak to me.
How to start
Where the business is, how decisions get made today, and what numbers already exist. No preparation and no tidying up first. If it is not a fit, you will hear that on the call.
I read your latest accounts and come back with a scope and a fee in writing, before any work starts. No hourly surprises.
We build your Money Engine and Year Map, choose your first Weekly Dials and hold your first Weekly Table. Then the quarterly rhythm takes over.
Questions
Finance-led business coaching means coaching a business owner to run the company starting from its financial numbers, then building the planning and meeting routine around those numbers, rather than starting from vision, values or personality.
It starts from your actual accounts, it includes a Money Engine that shows what each unit, job or customer earns, and it gives operations and sales managers ownership of most of the weekly numbers. It is led by a Warranted Accountant rather than a generalist coach.
Owner-managed Maltese SMEs with roughly 5 to 50 staff, where the owner is still involved in most decisions and the accounts are mainly used for VAT and annual compliance rather than for running the business.
No. Spreadsheets work. The hard part is capturing operations and sales data consistently every week, and that is where most of the early work goes.
No. It builds on what your accountant already produces each month and turns those figures into weekly decisions. You can keep your current accountant.
Once it is running, the leadership team spends 90 minutes a week at the Weekly Table and one full day every 13 weeks at the Quarter Day. The set-up work, building the Money Engine and the Year Map, happens at the start.
At DM Accounting, business coaching is scoped individually because it depends on the size of the business and the state of its numbers. The first 30-minute call is free, and the scope and fee are agreed in writing before any work starts.
It is worth it when it changes decisions that carry real money. In the worked example above, a Maltese installer with 12 staff and €1.2 million revenue, a 3-point improvement in gross margin was worth €39,600 a year, about two-thirds of the total profit improvement.
Glossary
Book a call
Tell me roughly what the business does and what is not working. I will come back within one business day to set up a call.