Demonstration case
From fragmented exports to an owner-ready cash decision.
An Amman food distribution business had substantial sales, thin cash headroom, large receivable and payable books, and source exports that did not agree at transaction level. It did not need another backward-looking pack. It needed to know which decision mattered next.
Numen reconstructed the books, resolved the data-quality issues, tied receivables and payables to the opening balances, and converted the result into a rolling 13-week cash view. That view exposed one specific pressure point, traced it to three named accounts, and reduced it to a single action with an owner and a date.
Representative figures from a reproducible demonstration model. Not a real company and not a claimed client outcome.
- Sector
- FMCG and food distribution
- Location
- Amman, Jordan
- Data horizon
- 14 months
- Decision window
- June 2026
The result in three numbers
The starting problem
The source material was a handover, not a management model.
The files carried mixed date formats, amounts stored as text, name variants across Arabic and Latin spellings, duplicate and blank rows, missing invoice references, credit notes, and bank lines with no matching document.
Management snapshot at the decision date
| Opening cash | JOD 75,000.00 |
|---|---|
| Open receivables | JOD 598,004.98 |
| Open payables | JOD 556,194.97 |
| Latest completed-month revenue | JOD 508,916.91 |
| Latest completed-month gross margin | 15.51% |
| Trailing 90-day collection days | 37.3 |
The business held working capital. Solvency on paper did not remove a weekly liquidity risk.
What arrived
- Customer and supplier master records
- Sales invoices and customer receipts
- Purchase invoices and supplier payments
- A bank statement with matched activity and unexplained lines
- Opening balances and a chart of accounts
- Forward payroll, recurring costs, and planned capital spend
What intake had to resolve
| Data-quality issue | Records |
|---|---|
| Customer rows with no identifier | 3 |
| Duplicate customer rows removed | 2 |
| Sales-invoice rows dropped | 92 |
| Receipt rows dropped | 0 |
| Blank or incorrect receipt matches | 10 |
| Purchase-invoice rows dropped | 19 |
| Supplier-payment rows dropped | 0 |
| Bank lines with no matching document | 6 |
| Credit notes handled as contra-sales | 58 |
A forecast is only credible when the balances behind it can be traced and reproduced. Reconciliation was treated as a prerequisite, not an appendix.
What Numen did
Six stages from raw export to a named decision.
- 01
Ingest
Every raw export was loaded without asking the owner to rebuild it first. Mixed dates, currency strings, spacing, and bilingual name variants were normalized into typed records.
- 02
Resolve and control
Customer and supplier references were matched against their master records. Duplicate and junk rows were removed. Credit notes were handled as contra-sales rather than quietly dropped.
- 03
Reconcile
Receivables and payables were rebuilt from transaction movements and tied back to the stated opening balances, so every total can be defended in an owner meeting.
- 04
Diagnose
Open receivables were aged, collection days measured, overdue concentration ranked against historical lateness, and supplier payments reviewed for duplication.
- 05
Forecast
The reconciled cash opening, receivable and payable books, forward payroll, recurring costs, planned capital spend, and restock timing were passed into a tested 13-week weekly cash formula.
- 06
Decide
The analysis was reduced to one decision window: what changed, why it matters, the named next move, who owns it, and what outcome that move produces.
Reconciliation tie-out
| Reconstructed | Stated opening | Difference | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accounts receivable | JOD 598,004.98 | JOD 598,004.98 | JOD 0.00 |
| Accounts payable | JOD 556,194.97 | JOD 556,194.97 | JOD 0.00 |
Both ledgers tie exactly to their stated opening balances, and the customer and supplier detail ties to those totals.
The reconciled receivables picture
This was never a broad collections problem.
The exposure was concentrated enough to name the accounts, size the balances, and assign one immediate action instead of a general instruction to collect faster.
Receivables aging
| Current | JOD 452,093.74 |
|---|---|
| 1 to 30 days | JOD 97,489.43 |
| 31 to 60 days | JOD 2,353.28 |
| 61 to 90 days | JOD 34,178.37 |
| Over 90 days | JOD 11,890.16 |
| Total open receivables | JOD 598,004.98 |
37.3 Trailing 90-day collection days
Measured against trailing 90-day credit sales of JOD 1,441,055.15.
The accounts behind the timing problem
| Account | Balance beyond 60 days | Average lateness | Role in the action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Key account 01 | JOD 13,000.00 | 39.2 | Recovery scenario |
| Key account 02 | JOD 11,000.00 | 35.3 | Recovery scenario |
| Key account 03 | JOD 9,500.00 | 38.9 | Next collection priority |
Average lateness: days
The decision window
One week, one cause, one named next move.
An inventory restock and payroll fall in the same week, before enough delayed customer cash arrives.
- Inventory restockJOD 116,000.00
- PayrollJOD 45,000.00
The business was profitable in its latest completed month and still faced a weekly shortfall. Trading performance and cash timing answer different management questions.
- Latest month net resultJOD 3,916.88
- Latest month gross margin15.51%
Secure dated collection commitments from key accounts 01 and 02 before week 3. The action moves week 4 positive without assuming any change to supplier terms.
- Targeted collectionJOD 24,000.00
- Week 4 after recoveryJOD 3,850.47
Thirteen-week cash evidence
The full forecast, including the weeks this action does not fix.
The collection action resolves the immediate decision window. It does not claim to solve every later liquidity pressure in the horizon, and the model leaves those weeks visible rather than hiding them. That candour is part of the work.
| Week | Week beginning | Baseline closing cash | Recovery closing cash |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 2026-06-01 | JOD 83,962.62 | JOD 107,962.62 |
| 02 | 2026-06-08 | JOD 104,925.23 | JOD 128,925.23 |
| 03 | 2026-06-15 | JOD 119,887.85 | JOD 143,887.85 |
| 04 | 2026-06-22 | JOD -20,149.53 | JOD 3,850.47 |
| 05 | 2026-06-29 | JOD -8,186.92 | JOD 15,813.08 |
| 06 | 2026-07-06 | JOD -66,341.17 | JOD -42,341.17 |
| 07 | 2026-07-13 | JOD -57,129.59 | JOD -33,129.59 |
| 08 | 2026-07-20 | JOD -41,918.01 | JOD -17,918.01 |
| 09 | 2026-07-27 | JOD -91,706.43 | JOD -67,706.43 |
| 10 | 2026-08-03 | JOD -76,494.85 | JOD -52,494.85 |
| 11 | 2026-08-10 | JOD -67,283.27 | JOD -43,283.27 |
| 12 | 2026-08-17 | JOD -52,071.69 | JOD -28,071.69 |
| 13 | 2026-08-24 | JOD -81,860.11 | JOD -57,860.11 |
The second quantified win
Three duplicate supplier-payment patterns.
The payables review compared payments within each supplier using normalized invoice references, close amounts, and date proximity. Recoverable value is set conservatively to the smaller payment in each flagged pair.
| Supplier | Pattern | Recoverable value |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier A | Exact re-key | JOD 1,180.00 |
| Supplier B | Rounding difference | JOD 965.00 |
| Supplier C | Cross-month repeat | JOD 910.00 |
This is a flagged opportunity, not cash recovered. The Finance Manager validates each source invoice and bank payment, obtains supplier confirmation, and requests a credit or refund only where duplication is confirmed.
What changed for management
Not more reporting. A clear decision window with a named next move.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Multiple exports with inconsistent formats | One normalized and typed data layer |
| Unclear treatment of duplicates, credit notes, and bad matches | An explicit data-quality report with controlled exceptions |
| Receivable and payable figures that were hard to defend | Detailed ledgers tied to the opening balances |
| A general concern about cash | A timed week 4 shortfall with a named cause |
| A broad request to collect faster | Two named accounts and a quantified swing |
| Insight without ownership | An owner, a deadline, and a review cadence |
What this case does not claim
- The recovery is a modelled scenario. The collection has not been executed or verified.
- The flagged duplicate value is an opportunity to validate, not cash already received.
- Later forecast weeks remain negative and require continuing working-capital decisions.
- This is a management-finance demonstration. It is not statutory audit, tax certification, or investment advice.
Direct contact
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