Where your ERP stops

Gross margin says you are fine.

Revenue minus cost of goods. Every account looks green. This is the photo most companies run on, and the reason they keep losing money without knowing it.

01 · The discipline

We trace every euro to what caused it.

Traditional accounting smears overhead by volume. TDABC writes a time equation per activity: order handling, service, delivery. Cost follows behaviour, not size.

02 · The truth

A few relationships carry everyone else.

Rank every customer by real net margin and the whale appears: the head earns far more than the company keeps, the tail quietly gives it back.

03 · Your move

Every number here is yours to move.

Re-price the loss-makers. Set minimum order values. Watch the tail lift in real time. This is a scenario on illustrative data; the levers are real.

The prize

Net profit on the table.

The gap between the peak and the number the board sees. Our clients recover it with surgical moves, not layoffs. See what is sitting in your own numbers.

Illustrative scenario
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Work with us

When the average stops being enough, bring in the capability.

Two front doors into the work, plus a way in by role. Both start from the data you already export.

Flagship service Most chosen

Don’t hire a controller. Subscribe to the capability.

A senior profitability controller, CostCtrl and AI, embedded for a set period then handed to your team. Predictable monthly cost, no hiring risk, productive from week one.

Embed Sprint · Fractional Controller · Profit Partner
Explore the controller
A one-off diagnostic

See where your margin really sits.

ProfitAudit 360 maps profit by customer, product and channel from data you already export, in about four weeks. A clear picture before you commit to anything ongoing.

TDABC · about four weeks · fixed scope
Explore ProfitAudit 360
More ways in For CFOs For Controllers ProfitAudit 360 CostCtrl Who we help
Years delivering profitability models
Engagements delivered
Countries
Professionals trained
01 The engagement

From diagnostic to embedded model in four stages.

See the full method
01
Profit Check
5 min, self-serve

A structured diagnostic that scores your organisation across seven profit dimensions. No data upload. You receive a personalised report with the areas of highest latent margin.
02
ProfitAudit 360
3 weeks, fixed fee

We take your general ledger and transactional data and build a full TDABC model. You get a whale curve, customer-level P&L, and a clear map of where margin leaks.
03
Build & Embed
6-10 weeks

We deploy CostCtrl with your data, train your team, and embed the model into your monthly management cycle. You own the model. We transfer the knowledge.
04
Advisory
Ongoing

Quarterly reviews, model updates, pricing strategy support, and scenario analysis. We stay as long as you need a sparring partner for profitability decisions.
04
CostCtrl Our preferred platform

Methodology is the brain. CostCtrl is the machine.

CostCtrl is the SaaS platform purpose-built for TDABC profitability modelling. It ingests your ERP data, runs time equations, and outputs customer-level and product-level P&Ls in minutes, not months. AI accelerates the model build and the reading of results, while every number stays traceable to its source, so the output is fast and still defensible in front of a board.

  • Upload financial and operational data or CSV, model runs in minutes
  • Whale curve, treemap, heatmap dashboards
  • AI-assisted model build with every number traceable to source
Explore CostCtrl
CostCtrl · Whale Curve
THE TIME EQUATION Cost = €/min × ( t₀ + t₁·x₁ + t₂·x₂ ) base time a fragile SKU a fussy customer COSTCTRL RUNS THIS. EVERY TRANSACTION. EVERY NIGHT.
05
AI · Cost and Profitability

AI builds cost models fast. Proving they are right is the hard part.

An AI cost model can be ready in hours instead of weeks. It can also assign costs to the wrong place, and a wrong allocation tells you to grow the customer that is losing you money. We use 25 years of TDABC experience to build these models with AI and, just as important, to check that the result holds up.

FIG. 01 · The AI Profitability Trust Framework™
1 Strategy Where AIadds value 2 Plan Readiness,governance 3 Build AI-builtTDABC model 4 Validate ProfitabilityTrust Score™ 5 Audit Ongoing,EU AI Act FROM IDEA TO ASSURED INSIGHT
Explore AI for Cost and Profitability →
Case · Industrial distribution, New Zealand

A €1.335M cost-to-serve problem, made visible, then halved.

A New Zealand industrial distributor with 1,951 customers found that 830 of them were contributing negatively once true cost-to-serve was attributed: a combined €1.335M. With the model in hand, the team re-priced loss-making combinations and reset service terms. The negative cohort has roughly halved, to around €665K, with loss-making customers down from 830 to 295.

Read the full case study →
0 −€1.335M at outset 830 customers → −€665K now 295 customers loss-making contribution roughly halved
€670K
Loss-making contribution recovered
535
Loss-making customers turned around
€1.335M
Hidden cost-to-serve made visible

Four kinds of leader call us. All are done guessing.

PORTFOLIO · 18 COMPANIES Margin diligence −€2.4M/yr found in W3 healthy at risk leaking sized by revenue · coloured by true margin
Private Equity

For Private Equity

You acquired a platform company. The management pack says 14% EBITDA. But which portfolio companies, which BUs, which customers are actually creating that margin? We show you, in weeks.

  • Portfolio-wide profitability benchmarking
  • Due-diligence cost model for add-ons
  • Post-acquisition margin improvement roadmap
See the page →
YOU OWN THE MODEL We design ourselves out of the room. us your team W1 W2 W3 W4+ → handover · the model runs without us
SMEs

For SMEs

You have 500+ SKUs, dozens of customers, and a gut feeling that some orders lose money. Your ERP gives you revenue per customer, but not cost-to-serve. We close that gap.

  • Customer and product-level P&L
  • Pricing strategy grounded in real cost data
  • A model your finance team can update monthly
See the page →
CFOs

For CFOs

The month-end close is on time, and still nobody can say which customers and products make money. We turn your existing data into a board-ready profit map, defensible to the last figure.

  • Profit by customer, product and channel
  • A number your board and auditor can defend
  • Owned by your team, in weeks
See the page →
Controllers

For Controllers

You can run the model. You just need the method and a working cost model wired to your data. We transfer TDABC and a maintainable cost-to-serve model your team owns, with no system change.

  • TDABC method, transferred to your team
  • A cost-to-serve model wired to your data
  • Maintainable in-house, no system change
See the page →

Field notes on cost truth.

All insights
Insight

How to Measure the ROI of a Profitability Improvement Project

A profitability improvement project is easy to approve and surprisingly hard to prove. The costs are concrete and land early: consulting fees,...

03 Jul 2026
Insight

The 4 Maturity Levels of Cost Management: Where Is Your Business?

Every business manages its costs somehow. The difference between one that grows margin deliberately and one that hopes for the best is...

01 Jul 2026
Insight

Manufacturing Margins in 2026: Why Tariff Volatility Makes Real Costing Non-Negotiable

For most manufacturers, the gross margin printed on the annual accounts is an average that hides far more than it reveals. In...

29 Jun 2026
Field notes

Cost truth, once a month.

Short, useful notes on cost-to-serve, pricing and profitability, for people who own the number. No fluff, no selling.

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WHO WE ARE

Founded by practitioners, not theorists.

Cost & Profitability Consulting was founded in 2010 with one mission: bring world-class cost management to companies that need it most. 25+ years of TDABC implementations, 150+ client engagements, and a profitability platform built because nothing on the market worked the way it should.

Meet the team
Miguel Guimaraes at The Costing Conference, Amsterdam 2025
The Costing Conference · Amsterdam 2025
Proof, not promises

From a sold-out Serralves auditorium with Gary Cokins to your profitability model.

The credibility is not an adjective on a homepage. It is a record: a stage, a conference, a three-day workshop in the Gulf, and a decade certified to train SAP's own consultants.

Serralves, Porto · 2013

Gary Cokins and seven world leaders, on one stage.

We convened an international conference for a sold-out auditorium of senior executives, with Porto Business School and the Porto City Council.

Read the storyAmsterdam · 2025

On stage at The Costing Conference.

Guest speaker on driving strategic planning and profitability with TDABC, with a live distribution case study.

Read the storySaudi Arabia · 2025

Three days of costing in the Kingdom.

A TVTC-certified executive workshop for the logistics sector, run for the Asharqia Chamber, from volume-based costing to a live CostCtrl model.

Read the story
Teams we have worked with
Sonae MCEfacecFrulactPorto de Leixões · APDLSodeciaRotom

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The same people build your model, on your data.Book a 30-minute scoping call → See all events & authority
Start with the truth

Your Profit Check takes five minutes. The insight lasts a career.

No data upload. No sales call. Just 14 questions across seven dimensions and a personalised profitability report.

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