Following three days of discovery sessions with Danny Castro, three engagement options were prepared for Leila and Jeremy's review. All options share the same goal — warehouse operations efficiency before Q4 — but differ in resourcing, pace, and what gets deprioritized. Option C was selected.
This is what the current $10K/month retainer delivers across the three workstreams — Warehouse, CRM, and the Reporting Portal (of which the Monthly Report rollout is just one component). Warehouse is limited to Bucket 1 through August. The CRM baseline cutover proceeds (committed regardless of budget), but advanced CRM features, the remaining Reporting Portal sections, and Warehouse Buckets 2–4 all defer to 2027. The Monthly Report rollout continues but runs mid-July through end of October as it competes for shared hours.
Building on the current plan, these three options accelerate delivery with a temporary budget increase. Each tier adds distinct value — D lands the CRM, E adds fully-integrated reporting and faster order entry, and F completes the warehouse automation that protects Q4. We recommend Plan F — it is the only option that removes the holiday billing bottleneck before the Q4 ramp.
The original Plan A estimate was five months. Plan F delivers the same Q4-ready warehouse automation in three. Two things changed — one narrows scope, the other reduces risk. Neither cuts the automation that protects the holiday season.
Net effect: a more focused scope plus a de-risked estimate compresses the same Q4-ready outcome from five months to three — without cutting any of the warehouse automation that protects the holiday season.
The timelines hold only if the inputs below hold. Two items are genuinely on the critical path: the team's responsiveness — questions, approvals, access — and the product-dimension data for billing automation. Neither is something we can build around.
Plan F — proposed under a revised budget of $20K/month for 3 months (June–August). Trade-off vs. the prior 5-month Plan A: the full Reporting Portal build is out of scope — only the Monthly Report rollout is included. Buckets 2–4 sequencing may be refined based on learnings from the Bucket 1 delivery.