Fractional CFO
Fractional CFO
Senior CFO judgment on a monthly retainer — the same operator in your numbers every month, not whoever is free on the bench this week.
A fractional CFO gives you the finance leadership a full-time hire would bring — forecasting, board reporting, lender management, margin work — without the $250K+ salary and equity. You pay for scope, not headcount.
What makes this different from a staffing pool is ownership. One named operator runs your finance function end to end, learns your business cold, and is on the other end of the line when the board, the bank, or an acquirer calls. You are not re-explaining your company to a new face each quarter.
The work is systematic: close support, variance, cash, covenants — a rigorous monthly cadence so the retainer buys judgment and narrative, not hours of spreadsheet labor.
What's included
Concrete work product on a defined scope — the menu, not a brochure of feelings.
- Board-ready monthly pack
- 13-week cash flow forecast
- Covenant & KPI dashboard
- Budget-vs-actual variance analysis
- Monthly close support & review
- Lender / investor reporting package
- Driver-based FP&A model
What lands each month
Concrete deliverables with a defined scope — so you see exactly what you get, not an open hourly meter.
Board-ready monthly package
P&L, balance sheet, variance analysis, and a written narrative the board actually reads.
13-week cash flow
A rolling, driver-based forecast with scenarios so runway is never a surprise.
Covenant & KPI dashboard
Continuous tracking against loan covenants and the metrics that move your enterprise value.
FP&A model
A driver-based operating model for budget-vs-actual, hiring, and what-if planning.
Standing CFO line
Direct access for the board prep, lender calls, and pricing decisions that can't wait for month-end.
The 13-week cash flow, the way we build it
Runway is the number that decides every other call. Here is the rolling forecast as it populates — illustrative figures, real method.
13-week cash forecast · illustrative
WeeklyEnding cash · wk 13
$0.00M
Liquidity floor · wk 8
$0.58M
Drawdown into a week-8 trough, then recovery — the curve a workout has to defend.
Why not a staffing firm
Staffing firms match you to a CFO, a controller, and a staff accountant billed hourly with no fixed scope — and the relationship resets when the bench rotates. Here you get one operator, a published scope, and fixed-fee deliverables.
Case study · Industrial / consumer
$80M
private company sale led through finance to close
Ownership wanted to run a sale process but the finance function wasn't ready for diligence — reporting was inconsistent and there was no clean model a buyer could underwrite.
Read the case studyQuestions
What does a fractional CFO actually do?
Runs the parts of finance that need judgment, not just recording: the board pack and narrative, the 13-week cash flow, covenant and KPI monitoring, the FP&A model, lender and investor reporting, and the pricing, hiring, and capital decisions that sit on top of the numbers. The bookkeeper records the past; the fractional CFO tells you what to do next.
When should I hire a fractional CFO?
When the decisions have outgrown the data. Common triggers: you're making seven-figure calls on month-old numbers, a lender or investor now expects covenant and cash reporting, the board wants a model and a narrative rather than a raw P&L, or a full-time CFO is the right eventual answer but premature today.
Fractional vs. outsourced vs. interim CFO — what's the difference?
They overlap heavily; the label mostly describes the shape of the engagement. Fractional is an ongoing part-time executive; outsourced frames the same work as a managed service; interim fills a sudden gap for a defined window with a clean handoff. What matters more than the label is whether one accountable operator owns the relationship — which is how we work in all three.
What makes a hard-situation fractional CFO different?
Most fractional CFOs are built for comfortable growth-stage companies. This practice is built for complexity — distressed, PE-backed, under lender pressure, manufacturing and CDMO. That means weekly cash discipline, covenant bridges, forbearance support, and sponsor-grade reporting are core competencies, not a stretch.
How quickly can a fractional CFO be engaged?
Most retainers stand up in about a week: connect the books (QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, or Sage, read-only), run the first analysis, and deliver the first board-ready package. When a lender event is already live, a turnaround engagement triages cash and covenant exposure in days.
Do you replace my bookkeeper or accountant?
No. We sit a level above them. You keep your bookkeeper for the recording and your accountant for filing; we read the same numbers and tell you what to do next.
How much does a Fractional CFO cost?
Retainers start around $5K/month and typically run $8K–$12K depending on scope and stage — a fraction of a $250K+ full-time hire. A one-time Diagnostic Sprint is $7,500. Concrete tier detail is published on the Pricing page.
Related engagements
Outsourced CFO
Stand up a complete CFO function without building one — close support, reporting, forecasting, and lender management, owned by a senior operator.
Turnaround / Distressed CFO
For the rooms where the bank is already on the phone — forbearance, covenant breach, restructuring. This is the work most fractional shops never touch.
PE-Backed CFO
Sponsor-grade reporting and covenant discipline for portfolio companies — built for the cadence a PE owner expects, without a full-time hire the platform can't yet justify.
Book a working session.
A 20-minute call, a clear read on your numbers, and a straight answer on whether a fractional CFO is the right call right now.