September 2025. A franchisee of three stores under a national brand calls us. Decent results, but the legal structure has become illegible, contracts with the franchisor date from 2014, and the administrative burden has finally overflowed. He wants to breathe. Nine months later, the file is closed.

The state of affairs

The manager operated three points of sale under two separate SRLs, one holding two stores, the other the third — for forgotten historical reasons. Commercial leases were sometimes in the SRL's name, sometimes in the manager's personal name. Franchise contracts had never been revised since initial signing, while the franchisor had introduced three sectoral amendments in the meantime.

Beyond that, an administrative fatigue: pay slips for 22 employees were managed by a payroll office, but the extras (fixed-term contracts, addenda, training, ecoprime) remained the manager's responsibility, who processed them "when he could".

The diagnosis — four half-day audit

Four points of fragility identified:

The dual SRL structure no longer provided any tax benefit or asset protection. It cost a full set of annual accounts, two ISOC declarations, two UBO registers, two sets of officers. Avoidable annual administrative cost: about €4,800.

Two of the three leases were in the manager's personal name, exposing him to a personal guarantee he had never measured. One of the leases was expiring within twelve months — this was the ideal time to migrate everything.

The franchise contracts contained several outdated clauses, notably on exclusive supply and sales targets, which had been renegotiated collectively at network level without being reflected in his individual contract.

Daily HR management had become an obstacle to any growth: each new hire took fifteen days of administrative lag.

The nine months of the mission

Months 1-2: merger of the two SRLs by absorption, with retroactive accounting effect on January 1. Consolidation of mandates, UBO register, banking relationships. Immediate annual saving: €4,800.

Months 3-4: negotiation with the franchisor to align the contract on sectoral amendments. Three clauses obtained out of five requested — a decent result given the balance of power.

Month 5: transfer of the expiring lease to the SRL's name, with bank guarantee replacing the personal guarantee. Two other leases renegotiated for lease assignment by the manager to the SRL, with landlord consent.

Months 6-9: setting up an externalised HR routine. Standardised contracts, template addenda, deadline dashboard (end of CDDs, renewals, mandatory training). The monthly package integrated this management.

The result

A single, coherent legal structure. Three leases in the company's name, with no residual personal guarantee. An up-to-date franchise contract. HR administrative burden transferred. The manager recovered about one day per week on his schedule — which he now devotes to his commercial development.

Total mission cost over nine months: about €22,000 all-in, largely absorbed by the perennial administrative savings, asset securing, and reclaimed manager time. This is the kind of file that alone justifies the Excellence package — because it requires continuity, not a one-off intervention.