Financial Clarity for Consumer Brands Before Cash Leaves the Business
ForwardLens was created by Tulsi Chokshi, a CPA, MBA and FPAC with 15 years of experience inside physical-product businesses.
After serving as Controller at Tatcha and working on inventory and margin at e.l.f. Cosmetics, I saw how easily important product decisions could be made using incomplete numbers.
Manufacturer costs, freight, duty, fulfillment, returns, discounts, retail deductions and payment timing often live in separate systems. ForwardLens brings those inputs into one decision-ready view before the next pricing, promotion, reorder or retail commitment.
Why landed margin becomes difficult to trust
Most consumer brands track revenue and cost of goods sold at a high level. What that view misses is the full variable cost stack that determines whether a SKU actually contributes to the business.
Freight and duty move with every shipment and supplier negotiation. Fulfillment rates vary by channel and carrier. Retail deductions, co-op fees, return allowances and markdown support are often recorded well after the sale. Discounts and promotions change the realized selling price mid-season.
When these costs live in separate systems — or are estimated rather than reconciled — the margin number a founder uses to make a pricing, reorder or channel decision is often incomplete. The gap between the number used and the number that is true tends to show up later, in cash.
My consumer-products finance experience
At Tatcha, I served as Controller with responsibility for financial reporting, inventory accounting and the cost structure underlying the brand's product decisions. At e.l.f. Cosmetics, I worked directly on inventory and margin analysis across a high-velocity, multi-channel business.
Both experiences gave me a detailed, operational understanding of how landed costs are built, where they get lost, and what it takes to produce a margin number that is complete enough to act on. I understand retailer deduction processes, freight and duty documentation, fulfillment cost structures and inventory valuation not as abstractions but as systems I worked inside.
That experience is what ForwardLens is built on.
How the Landed Margin Snapshot and Cash & Margin Audit work
The Landed Margin Snapshot is a focused starting point. You identify one priority SKU. I request the relevant source documents — manufacturer invoices, freight and duty support, fulfillment statements, channel-level sales data — and reconcile them into a provisional landed contribution margin. Every figure is tied to a source, every assumption is labeled, and every gap is identified.
The snapshot tells you whether the number you are currently using is complete enough to support your next decision — and, if it is not, exactly what is missing.
The Cash & Margin Audit is a focused three-week engagement that extends the same methodology across your priority SKUs and channels. It produces reconciled margin by SKU and channel, an assessment of cash realistically recoverable from inventory, and a cash timing model covering your next purchase order — deposits, production balances, freight, and retailer payment terms.
Both engagements are source-supported. Every finding is accompanied by the documents behind it and a clear statement of what is verified versus assumed.
Tulsi Chokshi
Founder & Consumer Brand Finance Advisor, ForwardLens