Commercial Banking Consulting — 6 Services, Zero Conflicts of Interest

A long relationship is valuable — but it often means you're operating under terms set years ago and never updated. We regularly find long-tenured clients paying fees based on legacy rate cards 20–40% higher than what the same bank offers new clients today. Waverly Hart Architecture hadn't renegotiated since 2011 — and was paying $487/month in fees that should have been $295. About half our engagements result in the client staying with their existing institution — on materially better terms. The relationship manager often welcomes the renegotiation — retaining a client at revised pricing beats losing one entirely. Your loyalty is an asset; we help you quantify its value and ensure you're being compensated for it.

Your accountant records and reports on banking transactions after they happen. We work upstream — on the structure, pricing, and configuration of the relationship itself. Most CPA firms don't specialize in commercial banking product structures, fee benchmarking across 23 institutions, platform configuration, or credit facility negotiation. We work alongside your accountant; we don't replace them. Many of our referrals come from accountants who recognize that banking optimization sits outside their scope. Elena Vasquez, CPA, CMA came from KPMG Vancouver — she understands exactly where accounting ends and banking consulting begins.

Standard audit for a single-entity business: $5,500–$9,500. Complex engagements (multi-entity, trust compliance, full RFP): $12,000–$25,000. Our median client realizes $14,200 in first-year savings — meaning the engagement typically pays for itself within 6 months, often sooner. Client outcomes range from ~$2,800 for well-managed smaller relationships to $34,800 for complex multi-entity consolidations. We provide a detailed scope and fee estimate before any engagement begins. If the projected savings don't justify the fee, we'll tell you — no charge for the scoping conversation. Request a scoping call to get a preliminary estimate specific to your situation.

Yes. Full migration management — account opening, payment redirection, pre-authorized debit/credit transfers, online banking setup and configuration, parallel operation during transition. Our migration checklist has 85+ line items refined across hundreds of transitions. A missed step can disrupt payroll, supplier payments, and client billing simultaneously — we don't miss steps. The parallel operation period (typically 4–6 weeks) ensures every payment stream is redirected and confirmed before the old accounts close. Marcus Tremblay manages the digital platform configuration at the new institution, so you're not starting from default settings again.

Trust and segregated account compliance is a core practice area — it's one of our six service pillars. We've worked with law firms (Law Society of BC), immigration consultants (CICC), strata managers (Strata Property Act), real estate brokerages (BCFSA), and notaries. Each body has different rules on segregation, interest treatment, reconciliation frequency, and reporting. We verify compliance against the current version of applicable rules — not assumptions from five years ago. Pacific Laneway Immigration Consultants passed their College compliance audit with zero findings after we restructured their trust accounts. Our Trust Account Compliance Quick Reference provides a side-by-side comparison of requirements across regulatory bodies.

One of our highest-ROI services. Most businesses are on bundled or tiered merchant pricing that obscures actual costs — the statement looks simple, but the markup is hidden in the spread between true interchange and what you're being charged. We unbundle the statement, identify true interchange cost versus processor markup, and renegotiate or source interchange-plus pricing. For businesses processing $500K+ annually in card volume, we typically find $5,000–$20,000 in annual savings. For Northshore Veterinary Group — three locations processing significant card volume — merchant savings alone exceeded $24,100/year by moving from bundled pricing at 1.89% to interchange-plus at an effective 1.52%.

Our engagements cover clients from ~$1.9M to ~$7.2M in revenue. Pacific Laneway Immigration Consultants — a 6-person RCIC firm at $1.9M — realized compliant trust accounting and cut monthly reconciliation from 11 hours to 2.5. Size doesn't determine whether your banking is optimized. Revenue structure, transaction volume, account complexity, and regulatory requirements matter more than topline numbers. During the scoping conversation, we'll give you an honest assessment of whether the likely savings justify the engagement fee at your revenue level. If they don't, we'll say so.

Standard banking audit: 4–6 weeks from document collection to final report. Banking RFP process: 8–12 weeks including institution response periods. Trust compliance restructuring: 4–8 weeks. Online banking optimization: 2–4 weeks. Full banking migration (if switching institutions): 6–10 weeks including parallel operation period. We provide a detailed timeline with every scope document, and Jordan Whitfield coordinates the document collection process to minimize disruption to your team. Most clients spend 2–3 hours total on their side of the engagement — the rest is our work.

You're right — and you're not alone. The average business owner in our client base is overpaying on personal financial products by $2,800–$6,100 annually. We offer a separate personal banking advisory session — a 2–3 hour review at $950 flat — covering lines of credit, mortgage optimization, wire transfers, identity protection, estate and trust accounts, and direct deposit configuration. Many clients bundle this with their commercial engagement. 73% of the business owners we work with hadn't reviewed their personal banking terms in the past 5 years.