Tells you which number is lying
The first job is almost never building a forecast. It is working out why the existing numbers disagree with what the bank account is doing — and that is a bookkeeping-quality problem more often than a strategy one.
Guide
What does a fractional CFO do?
A fractional CFO is an experienced finance executive who works with a business a few days a month rather than full-time. They own the forward-looking work — cash, margin, pricing, reporting — and they replace neither your bookkeeper nor your accountant.
The role gets sold as strategy. In practice the first month is usually spent finding out why two numbers that should agree do not, because a business rarely arrives at this question with books clean enough to answer it.
What a fractional CFO does, month to month
Cash, forward-looking
A 13-week cash forecast that is maintained rather than built once. Most businesses that fail on cash had a profitable P&L while doing it.
Pricing and margin by segment
Which customers, products or contracts actually make money once delivery cost is loaded in. This is where most stalled businesses find their answer, and it is the analysis almost nobody has.
The reporting the business runs on
A monthly pack the owner can read in ten minutes and act on, replacing whatever spreadsheet has been quietly accumulating since year two.
Systems and the close
Whether the accounting stack still fits, and getting the month-end close down from weeks to days so the numbers arrive while they can still change a decision.
The transaction, when there is one
Diligence readiness, lender and investor reporting, and the clean-up that should have started a year before anyone said the word exit.
Who does what
These roles get used interchangeably and they are not interchangeable. The quickest way to tell which one you are missing is to read the second column and find the question nobody in the business is currently answering.
| Role | The question it answers | Looks | When you need one |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bookkeeper | Did we record it correctly? | Backward — days and weeks | Always. Every business needs one, at every size. |
| Accountant / CPA | Are we compliant, and what do we owe? | Backward — the year just closed | Always, at least annually. Tax and statutory work. |
| Controller | Are the numbers right, on time, every month? | Present — the current close | When the close is slipping or the books need a full-time owner. |
| Fractional CFO | What should we do about what the numbers say? | Forward — quarters and years | When decisions are being made on numbers nobody fully trusts. |
| Full-time CFO | The same question, plus building the finance function | Forward, plus the team | When the work is genuinely full-time — usually well past $20M, or through a transaction. |
Six signals
None of these is about revenue. A single-entity business at $15M may never need this; a four-entity group at $3M usually does.
- Revenue grew and profit did not, and no one can say exactly why.
- The month-end close takes more than two weeks, so decisions are made on stale numbers.
- You have never seen margin broken out by product, customer or contract.
- Cash is tight in months the P&L says were good.
- A lender, investor or acquirer has asked for something the books cannot currently produce.
- Your bookkeeper is being asked questions that are not bookkeeping questions.
How engagements are priced
No rate card here, for the same reason there is no pricing column on our software comparison: the honest answer is that it depends on scope, and a published range would be marketing rather than information. What moves the number is entity count, how clean the books are when the work starts, and whether it is an ongoing rhythm or a defined project. What has actually been published, and its limits, is set out in fractional CFO cost.
Monthly retainer
A fixed scope — reporting pack, forecast maintenance, a standing monthly session. The most common shape, and the one that suits a business that needs the rhythm rather than a project.
Day rate
Bought in blocks. Suits diagnostic work, or a business that wants a defined piece of analysis before committing to anything ongoing.
Project or engagement fee
A fixed price against a defined outcome — diligence readiness, a systems selection, a pricing review. Ends when the outcome lands.
Common questions
What is a fractional CFO?
A fractional CFO is an experienced finance executive who works with a business part-time — typically a few days a month — instead of being employed full-time. They do the forward-looking work a CFO does: cash forecasting, margin and pricing analysis, management reporting, systems decisions and transaction readiness. They do not replace a bookkeeper or an accountant, both of whom the business still needs.
What does a fractional CFO cost?
Packaged CFO services sold alongside bookkeeping start at $1,500 to $2,000 a month as of September 2026. Above that floor it depends on scope far more than on seniority, and anyone quoting a single figure is guessing. Engagements are usually a monthly retainer, a day rate bought in blocks, or a fixed project fee. What actually moves the price is how many entities there are, how clean the books are to start with, and whether the work is a standing monthly rhythm or a defined project.
Fractional CFO vs controller — what is the difference?
A controller owns the accuracy and timeliness of the numbers: the close, the controls, the reconciliations. A fractional CFO owns what to do about them. If the month-end close is late or wrong, the gap is a controller. If the close is fine and the decisions are still guesswork, the gap is a CFO.
When should a business hire a fractional CFO?
The usual trigger is growth that stopped converting into profit, with no clear explanation. Most businesses reach that between $1M and $10M in revenue, at the point where the owner is making capital and pricing decisions on numbers assembled in a spreadsheet nobody fully trusts.
Is a fractional CFO the same as outsourced accounting?
No. Outsourced accounting is the production of the numbers — bookkeeping, payroll, the close — delivered by an external team. A fractional CFO is the interpretation of them. Plenty of businesses buy both, and they are frequently bought from different providers.
If this is the gap
We do this work for businesses past $1M that have stopped compounding — how we work covers the approach and what an engagement looks like. If what you actually need is someone to produce the numbers rather than interpret them, the directory lists practices checked against the IRS register of credentialed preparers.