What are the steps from first email to finished project?
There are five steps: you email us, we hold an introductory consultation, we send a written proposal, we do the work with your team, and we hand everything over. You commit only at the third step, when you sign the proposal. Until then there's no obligation and nothing to pay.
You email us
A few lines about your business and what you need help with. Our contact page lists what's useful to include.
Introductory consultation
We learn how the business makes and spends money, what decision is coming up and what you've already tried. If we aren't the right firm for the work, we'll say so.
Written proposal
An engagement letter with the scope, the deliverables, the timetable, who does what and a fixed fee. Work starts only when you've signed it.
The work
We work from the data and documents you choose to share, and check our findings with your team as we go rather than at the end.
Handover
You receive every file we've built, a short written summary and a walkthrough, so you can keep using the work without us.
How does BrndTst charge?
BrndTst charges a fixed fee for each project, set out in the written proposal before work starts. The fee depends on the scope and is the only money we receive for the work. We never take commissions, success fees or a percentage of money invested or raised, so the size of a deal doesn't change what we earn.
If the scope needs to change during a project, for example because you'd like us to check an extra firm, we agree the change and any extra fee in writing before we do the work.
What goes into the engagement letter?
The engagement letter is the written proposal you sign before work begins. It sets out the scope, the deliverables, the timetable, who does what on both sides and the fixed fee, together with how we keep your information confidential and what happens to it when the project ends. If something isn't in the letter, it isn't agreed.
- The scope: the question we are answering, and what is outside it.
- The deliverables, and the form you receive them in.
- The timetable, including what we need from your team and when.
- The fixed fee, and how a change of scope would be agreed.
- Confidentiality, and the return or deletion of your information at the end.
Does anyone else pay BrndTst?
No. BrndTst takes no commissions, referral fees or sponsorship from banks, fund managers, brokers, lenders, investors or any firm we might review. When we compare options or check a firm for you, nobody on the other side is paying us, so nothing pulls us towards one answer rather than another.
The same rule applies to this website: nobody pays us to write anything here, and there are no sponsored articles or affiliate links.
What information will we ask you to share?
We ask only for what the project needs, such as bank statements or exports, ledgers, management accounts, loan agreements and any offer you want checked. You decide what to send and how. We never ask for passwords, banking logins, security codes or the ability to make payments, and we don't need them.
We keep client information confidential, use it only for your project, and return or delete it when the project ends unless the law requires us to keep it. The engagement letter sets this out.
What happens after the handover?
After the handover, the work is yours to run. Your team keeps every file, together with the routine for keeping it current. If you'd like us to look at it again later, for example before a board review or when the business changes, we agree that as a separate piece of work, with its own written scope and fixed fee.
Most of what we build is designed to need us less over time: a forecast your team rolls forward each week, a policy the board reviews once a year, a checklist anyone in finance can follow.
How can you check that a message really comes from BrndTst?
Genuine messages from BrndTst come from an address at our own website's domain and never ask for money to invest, passwords, codes or remote access to your computer. If a message, call or website uses our name and asks for any of these, don't reply to it. Contact us using the address on our website instead.
The full checklist, and what to do if someone misuses our name, is on is BrndTst legit?.