Helen Marlowe
Practice lead. Formerly category manager for facilities and packaging in a multi-site retailer. Holds the first conversation about extracts and chairs the findings briefing.
The practice
We came from buying desks, not from a product studio
Toolkitroutegrid is a small advisory practice in Curteis' Corner. The work is ledger mapping, vendor notes, and briefings that a budget committee can sit through without a glossary.
Origin
The practice started after too many year-end conversations in which the contract register and the purchase ledger told different stories. Temporary labour was coded to “professional fees”. A closed depot still drew facilities invoices. Preferred suppliers sat on a slide while free-text names took the volume. Someone had to sit with the extract until the names were honest.
We remain in the Weald of Kent by choice. Travel to London, the South East, and the Midlands is ordinary; longer trips are scoped as expenses in the engagement letter. UK public bodies using Crown Commercial Service call-offs are familiar territory, as are privately held manufacturers with a single finance director who also owns procurement.
People
James Okonkwo
Reviewer. Background in accounts payable and goods-in for a food manufacturer. Owns alias matching and the OTIF arithmetic on vendor cards.
Priya Shah
Category reviewer. Worked in temporary labour and professional-fees buying for a local authority. Leads deep-dives where sites raise their own orders.
How we work
One named reviewer stays with the file. Kick-off is short. We will refuse an extract that still contains payroll or card numbers. Findings are spoken first in a closed room; the pack follows. We do not present to a supplier without your instruction, and we do not sell the briefing as theatre.
Values that actually constrain us: we would rather mark a measure as missing than guess; we keep category names in your vocabulary; we will say when a re-tender is not the next step because the volume figure is still fiction.