01
Finance diagnostic
First month
People, systems, close quality, reporting, cash discipline and covenant position. Written, with the gaps ranked by consequence.
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Accounting · Specialization
Finance leadership,
Finance leadership,
at the size you actually need.
A fractional controller or CFO who knows your numbers because our team produces them: budgets, forecasts, lender packages and the board conversation behind them.
At a glance
Fractional controller and CFO engagements sized from two days a month to two days a week, covering forecasting, cash management, reporting, lender relationships and finance team development.
Who this suits
- Companies between $5M and $75M with no full-time CFO
- Businesses in a bank covenant they are watching nervously
- Owners preparing for a raise, a sale or a generational transition
- Companies whose controller is excellent at the close and stretched beyond it
- Boards asking for reporting the current team cannot yet produce
Most companies need CFO judgment long before they need a CFO salary.
The gap usually appears somewhere between five and fifty million in revenue. The bookkeeping works, the close happens, and yet nobody can say with confidence what the cash position will be in fourteen weeks, whether the covenant holds if a customer slips, or which product line is quietly subsidizing the others.
Our engagements are sized to the gap: two days a month for a company that mainly needs a rigorous forecast and a lender conversation, two days a week for one going through an integration or a system change. The same person stays with you rather than rotating.
Because our accounting team produces the numbers, the CFO work does not begin with three weeks of finding out whether the numbers are true. That is the practical advantage of buying both from one firm, and it is most of the reason clients do.
We are equally clear about where this ends. When a company needs a full-time CFO, we say so, help write the specification, sit on the interviews, and hand over properly. Keeping a fractional engagement alive past its usefulness would be an easy way to bill and a bad way to advise.
Deliverables
The judgment layer
The judgment layer
above the close.
Engagements are scoped in days per month, with a written remit so everyone knows what is and is not covered.
Budget and forecast
An annual operating budget and a rolling thirteen-week cash forecast, both maintained rather than built once and abandoned.
KPI and management reporting
A one-page operating dashboard built around the handful of measures that actually move your business.
Lender and covenant management
Covenant modeling, borrowing base reporting, and the quarterly conversation with your bank handled by someone fluent in it.
Board and investor packages
A reporting pack that survives scrutiny, with the narrative written and the questions anticipated.
Pricing and margin analysis
Contribution by product, service line, customer or job, usually the first place a fractional CFO earns the fee.
Finance team development
Assessment, structure and coaching for the internal team, including how to hire the person who eventually replaces us.
How it runs
Diagnose, stabilize,
Diagnose, stabilize,
then look forward.
A CFO engagement that begins with strategy before the reporting is trustworthy will produce confident answers built on sand.
02
Reporting foundation
Months one to three
A reporting pack and forecast you can trust. Nothing strategic is worth doing until this exists.
03
Forward work
Ongoing
Scenario modeling, pricing, capital structure, capex, the lender relationship and the specific decisions actually in front of you.
04
Handover, when it is time
By design
When the business outgrows a fractional arrangement we help specify and hire the permanent role, then transition out cleanly.
Related
More in Accounting
These sit next to each other for a reason: most engagements draw on two or three of them at once.
Accounting overview
Outsourced AccountingFull-cycle bookkeeping, month-end close, reconciliations, AP and AR workflow, reporting packages.
Audits, Reviews & CompilationsFinancial statement engagements for lenders, investors, bonding agents and grantors.
Payroll & Contractor ComplianceMulti-state payroll registration and filings, worker classification, fringe benefits, year-end forms.
Leadership
CFO judgment
CFO judgment
without the CFO salary.
Start with the finance diagnostic. It is a fixed fee, it is written, and it stands on its own whatever you decide afterwards.