Rosa Sabater has been building her business for over a decade. What started as a small, manageable operation grew rapidly over the last three to four years into a multi-million-dollar organization with dozens of experts.
When we met Rosa, nothing was technically “broken.” Invoicing was going out. Payroll was being processed. The books were being updated.
But everything was manual. Everything depended on Rosa. Visibility was limited.
She knew, intuitively, that the numbers in her bank account did not tell the full story. It just wasn’t clear what belonged to the business, what was owed, or what the business was truly earning.
Rosa had kept tight control over finances for years. Invoicing, payroll, cash flow, bookkeeping, all of it managed closely in-house. But as the business scaled, control quickly turned into a bottleneck.
Revenue was being recorded when clients were invoiced rather than when work was earned. Team and collaborators would only be paid after client payments cleared, which helped short-term cash flow but created long delays and dissatisfaction internally. The books were updated monthly but without reconciliations or real-time insight.
As Rosa put it: “I could look at my bank account and know that wasn’t all my money, but I couldn’t tell you exactly how much of it was.”
Like so many of our clients, Martellus needed clarity, structure but most importantly a financial system that could grow alongside the growing needs of a scaling business.
“I could look at my bank account and know that wasn’t all my money, but I couldn’t tell you exactly how much of it was.”
ROSA SABATER
Heather (Chief Accounting Partner)
Getting the basics right
Shifted the books from cash to accrual accounting to reflect earned revenue
🚩 Shifted the books from cash to accrual accounting to reflect earned revenue
🚩 Rebuilt the P&L and balance sheet to create real financial visibility
🚩 Created clear tracking for what was owed to collaborators versus what belonged to the business
Rebuilt the P&L and balance sheet to create real financial visibility
Created clear tracking for what was owed to collaborators versus what belonged to the business
For the first time, Rosa could clearly see how the business was performing, not just how much cash was in the bank.
Within the first 6 months, the impact was tangible:
Cleared internal admin time spent in financial activities which led to reducing staffing costs by over 60%
0 invoicing errors
Clear visibility into margins and earned revenu
🚩 Cleared internal admin time spent in financial activities which led to reducing staffing costs by over 60%
🚩 0 invoicing errors
🚩Clear visibility into margins and earned revenue
🚩 Significantly higher satisfaction and morale for the team of experts
🚩 Consistent and accurate monthly financial reviews
Significantly higher satisfaction and morale for the team of experts
Consistent and accurate monthly financial reviews
And yet the most meaningful shift was not operational. As Rosa described it, the greatest relief came from knowing that she no longer had to wonder whether things were “mostly right.” She had experts she trusted and numbers she could rely on.
We split the work into two phases.
The first step, getting the foundation in place.
We began by taking invoicing completely off Rosa’s hands. For this particular project, we decided to essentially embed the team within her business by learning and replicating her existing process so nothing broke while changing things around. From there, we rebuilt:
Fixing payroll without breaking cash flow
One of the most complex challenges was payroll. Experts were being paid only once clients paid, often 30 to 60 days later. This created frustration for the team and kept Rosa mostly in firefighting mode.
Rather than rushing to a solution, we stress-tested the entire payroll system.
We reverse-engineered the existing setup, analyzed client payment behavior, tested multiple scenarios, and defined the exact KPIs that would need to hold true for a new payroll model to work without creating cash-flow risk.
Only once we were confident did we recommend a change.
The business is now switching to a system where experts are paid when they earn. This led to better forecasting, trust and team satisfaction, all while maintaining financial stability in the business.
From operating to leading
Today, Martellus is finishing phase one. The foundation is in place.
Phase two now is all about using the numbers strategically, aligning financial decisions with Rosa’s five-year goals and ensuring the business structure supports where she wants to go next.
Rosa is still involved, still asking the right questions. Except now, she’s no longer carrying all the weight alone:
“I hired them for the mechanics, which are flawless, but they’re providing much more strategic support and insight”
Rosa Sabater, Martellus
