Cape Town
HQ counter-hour sprint
When Fork & Field hit their busiest month, three counter-hours made the chaos workable and cash flow clearer.
Meet Fork & Field, Cape Town
Fork & Field is a five-person catering crew based in Salt River, Cape Town. They run quick-turnaround events for local agencies and tech offices from Woodstock to Observatory, think Friday platters for Yoco, and coffee hours for designers at The Old Biscuit Mill. Before our sprint, their admin was, by their own words, 'like trying to plate up in a power cut'. Stacks of diesel slips, half-finished supplier forms, and a bumpy cashbook made watching out for VAT201 deadlines almost impossible. By May, their books trailed reality by R46,000. Three staff were waiting on expense reimbursements since March. Lindiwe, their founder, called it a 'full-on month-end schlep.'
Before: Evenings lost, cash stuck
In April, Fork & Field’s team spent most weekday evenings scrambling over WhatsApp to piece together supplier invoices from the past fortnight. None of their three company cards matched the banking CSV, and they always seemed to miss at least one Woolies purchase in the weekly count. April saw two catering jobs at offices in Century City where they forgot to bill for overtime bacon trays, R2,980 left unclaimed. Load-shedding forced them to move their billing hour twice, which delayed cash flow and meant two suppliers in Brits had to wait another week for payment.
How our counter-hour sprint worked
We booked Fork & Field for three HQ counter-hour sessions split over one manic week: Tuesday (Day 2), Thursday (Day 4), and the following Monday (Day 7). The aim: get control over their expense claims, supplier lists, and weekly invoicing before the next EMP201 run. Here’s what happened, step by step.
- Tuesday 10:00, 11:00: Sat with Lindiwe and her bookkeeper (Martin) to map weekly supplier touchpoints and mark out missing slips for April (total: 16 missing).
- Tuesday 15:00, 16:00: Used Counter-Hour Charm to group card charges against the supplier calendar. Cross-referenced all spend above R500 with their FNB statements and matched three overcharged snack orders at Kloof Street SPAR.
- Thursday 14:00, 15:00: Triggered a supplier note sweep with custom checklists, tackling Brits and Durban suppliers owed since Q1. Two quick call recordings flagged as payment proof for their records.
- Friday 17:00: Collated VATable expenses and sorted them in a Google Sheet (tagged by supplier, date and project). Prepared a shortcut input for EMP201.
- Monday 09:00, 09:30: Ran a Chaos Reset session. Identified two recurring mistakes in expense claims (double counting parking paypoints, missing SnapScan catering top-ups).
- Monday 10:30, 11:00: Final wrap-up. Gave Lindiwe a two-page action map plus a printable supplier list for Q2. Pinned all major cash dates on their 'Ops Rituals' wall.
- By Day 8, all expense claims from March and April were processed, totalling R9,220 back into staff pockets.
The difference after one week
Fork & Field’s next supplier payout day, every 25th, was actually ahead by three working days for the first time. Staff received their reimbursements two months late, but at least they got them. Two Brits suppliers received payment confirmation within 48 hours, a record for the team. Their cash calendar now shows every EMP201 and VAT201 date, plus a sticky-note for Cape Town’s Stage 4 load-shedding. Lindiwe’s exact words: 'Our WhatsApp is about food, not missing forms.' More than just admin, there’s a sense of flow now, even if its still a bit messy on Mondays.
Three months on: habits and tools
By July, Fork & Field still use the starter kits plus their supplier action map to check week-to-week spend. Every Monday at 09:30, Martin kicks off a ritual using their weekly ops routines set. No more hunting for slips or missed supplier cut-offs. They’ve stuck to their updated cash calendar, rolled out an automated EMP201 reminder, and keep their Q3 VAT folder up to date. The team actually looks forward to Monday wrap-ups, well, most of the time, anyway.
