CFO Consulting Services for Complex Businesses

Someone who does the work of a chief financial officer for your company without being a full time employee. In practice that means owning the forecast, watching cash, setting up reporting leadership can trust, tightening controls, and sitting in on the big decisions: a new hire, a line of credit, a bid on a larger contract. The goal is simple. Owners stop guessing and start deciding from numbers they believe.

Fractional means you get a set share of a senior finance person's time, monthly or around a defined project. A typical month might include closing the books with your bookkeeper, reviewing margins by contract or product line, updating a 13 week cash forecast, and preparing a short package for the bank or your board. You pay for the level of involvement you need, and you can scale it up during a raise, an acquisition or a busy proposal season.

Usually when the business has grown faster than its finance function. Common signs: you're profitable on paper but always short on cash, nobody can say which customers or contracts actually make money, the lender keeps asking for reports you don't have, or you're weighing a major decision on gut feel. For government contractors, winning the first cost type contract is often the moment, because the accounting expectations change overnight.

Bookkeeping looks backward. It records transactions and keeps the ledger accurate. CFO work looks forward. It uses that ledger to build forecasts, explain why margins moved, plan for cash needs, and tell leadership what to do about it. You need both, and the CFO side only works if the bookkeeping underneath is solid, which is why we often start by cleaning up the close.

That's a big part of what we do. Contractors deal with DCAA reviews, FAR and CAS requirements, indirect rate pools, timekeeping rules and incurred cost submissions. Our founder spent years in federal contracting finance, so we can set up compliant charts of accounts in Deltek Costpoint, Unanet or QuickBooks Online, build provisional rates you can defend, and get the books ready before a pre award survey rather than after.

Most clients settle into a monthly financial review plus a planning session each quarter. During a growth spurt, a financing round or a compliance deadline, that might become weekly for a while. We agree on the rhythm up front so you always know when the next set of numbers and recommendations is coming.

No. Your bookkeeper keeps recording transactions and your tax preparer keeps filing, if you're happy with them. The CFO role ties their work to the decisions leadership is making. Many clients do move tax planning and preparation to us so it lines up with the forecast, and if a payroll tax balance or other IRS issue surfaces, our Enrolled Agent can handle the resolution directly.

The last two or three years of financial statements, access to your accounting system, a current cash position, any loan or credit agreements, and a list of what's keeping you up at night. Contractors should add their contract list, current indirect rates and any DCAA correspondence. From that we can usually spot the two or three issues worth fixing first.