Someone in your corner on the numbers.Every month, before the decisions get made.
A lot of fractional CFOs advise from books someone else keeps, with tax at another firm. Core’s comes with the books and the tax plan on one team, led by an Enrolled Agent.
2 minutes. If it’s a fit, you pick a time with Barry. No obligation.
What is a fractional CFO?
A fractional CFO is a senior finance lead you share with other companies, paid monthly instead of a full-time salary. The job is a rolling cash forecast, a budget, an owner pay plan and a monthly decision review. At Core, the fractional CFO comes with your bookkeeping and tax on the same team, from $5,000 a month.
Five things a fractional CFO should hand you every month.
The title gets used loosely. So skip the title and look at the output. For a $3M-$50M company, this is the job description.
A cash forecast that moves with the calendar
Each month the forecast drops the month that just closed and adds one further out. Payroll, tax payments, loan payments and the big annual bills all sit on it. You see a tight month while there’s still time to move something.
A budget somebody actually checks
It gets built once a year, with you. Then every month, actual results go right next to it. A line that drifts comes up on the next call, while it’s one month off instead of twelve.
An owner pay plan
Your salary, your distributions and what stays in the business, set on purpose. On an S corp, the salary piece starts with reasonable compensation... which is just the salary the IRS expects you to pay yourself.
A review call, about an hour
Last month, where cash is heading and the open decisions on your list. You leave with an answer, or with the number you were missing to get one.
Answers between calls
A customer asks for net-60 terms. A vendor offers a discount if you prepay the year. Those don’t wait for the call, so they go by email.
Notice what isn’t on that list. Categorizing transactions, reconciling the bank, filing the return. Those are other people’s jobs, and the CFO work sits on top of them.
Bookkeeper, controller, fractional CFO, full-time CFO. Each one stands on the one before it.
People use these titles as if they were sizes of the same thing. They’re four different jobs.
| Role | The job | How often | Who it’s for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bookkeeper | Records and reconciles transactions, then closes the month | Weekly or monthly | Almost every company, from year one |
| Controller | Checks the bookkeeping, books accruals (income and costs in the month they belong to) and owns the accuracy of the statements | Monthly | Companies whose statements now drive loans, pricing or tax decisions |
| Fractional CFO | Uses those statements to plan forward: cash forecast, budget, owner pay and the big decisions | A monthly review, plus questions between | Owners whose decisions outgrew their own spreadsheet, before a full-time CFO makes sense |
| Full-time CFO | The same forward planning, plus running a finance staff and managing lenders and investors day to day | Every day | Larger companies with an in-house finance team to lead |
Read it top to bottom. A forecast is only as good as the statements under it. And the statements are only as good as the close. Skip a row and the row above it is guessing.
A fractional CFO is only as good as the books he didn’t close.
Plenty of fractional CFOs are sharp. The usual setup works against them anyway.
He works from a QuickBooks file your bookkeeper keeps. If a category is wrong, he can flag it. He can’t change how it gets booked next month.
Your tax plan lives at your CPA’s office. He builds an owner pay plan in the fall. Your CPA sets your salary in a different meeting, months later.
Neither of them is wrong. They just never compare notes. So you carry the messages between three firms... at night, in a spreadsheet. Nobody’s job was making the numbers agree.
The fix isn’t a smarter CFO. It’s putting the books, the tax plan and the CFO work on one team. Then the forecast and the tax answer come from one set of numbers.
Here, the CFO work starts once your books close on the 15th.
Same loop, same order, every month. One team runs all of it from one QuickBooks Online file.
- Books closed by the 15th, with every bank, card, payment processor and payroll account reconciled to its source
- Controller review of the balance sheet and accruals before anything reaches you
- The cash forecast rolled forward from those closed books
- Your tax picture updated every quarter from the same numbers, business and personal
- A review call where open decisions get an answer with the tax effect already in it
Your first monthly package arrives in month two. Month one takes under 5 hours of your time while we clean up. After that, it’s under 3 hours a month.
The team is led by Barry Roach Jr., EA, with 20+ years in accounting and tax. The IRS licenses Enrolled Agents to represent taxpayers... so the person planning your taxes can also answer the IRS if it writes.
Want to see the loop on a real decision? Read how the CFO work handles hiring and cash decisions.
Built for $3M-$50M service businesses on QuickBooks Online.
Agencies, IT services and MSPs, consulting firms, insurance agencies and recruiting firms. Coaching and education companies, and recurring home and commercial services. All 50 states.
A few things are out, on purpose. We work in QuickBooks Online only, so everyone is in one file. If you’re on something else, the move is quoted before you sign.
We don’t pay your bills or chase invoices, though we report on both every month. And no inventory, WIP or job costing, because the team is built for service businesses.
Under $3M, the fee is hard to justify. Barry will say so on the fit call and point you somewhere that costs less.
Seven questions to ask any fractional CFO before you sign.
Ask every firm you talk to, including us. A good firm can answer each one in a sentence or two. Ours sit under each question.
1. Who keeps the books you’ll work from?
Every number in the forecast starts there. If the answer is “your bookkeeper,” ask who checks that work first. At Core, our team closes your books by the 15th and a controller reviews them.
2. When will I see last month’s numbers?
A review of a month that closed late is... a history lesson. Ask for the date, not “early in the month.” Our answer: books close by the 15th, and the review call comes after.
3. Who does my taxes, and will they see your plan?
When tax sits at another firm, every plan needs a second meeting to learn what it costs after tax. Here, the same team plans and files your business return and the owners’ personal returns.
4. What do I get each month, in writing?
A list beats a promise. Ours: the rolling cash forecast, budget against actuals, the owner pay plan, a review call of about an hour, and email between calls.
5. What does it cost, and what’s quoted separately?
Get the full number before you sign. Core publishes its price by revenue band, with no onboarding fee. Extra entities, multi-state payroll, a QuickBooks Online move or more than 12 months of catch-up get quoted up front.
6. How long am I committed?
Ask what happens in month four if it isn’t working. With us, it’s month-to-month from day one, with 30 days’ notice. There’s a money-back promise too, spelled out in the price section below.
7. How much of my time will this take?
Somebody has to answer the questions, and it’s usually you. Expect under 5 hours with us in month one, then under 3 hours a month.
$5,000 a month, published, with the books and the taxes in it.
That’s for companies doing $3M-$10M. It’s $7,500 for $10M-$20M, and from $10,000 for $20M-$50M. Every tier gets bookkeeping, controller work, business and personal tax, and CFO advisory. No onboarding fee.
Judge it like any line on your P&L. $60,000 a year is about 2% of revenue at $3M and 0.6% at $10M. Then add up what you pay today for the bookkeeper, the CPA and any CFO, plus your own hours in the middle.
Month-to-month from day one, with 30 days’ notice. If we didn’t do the job to your standard, you can ask for your most recent month back. Month one or month 36.
For what drives the price and how firms bill for this work, read the full breakdown of fractional CFO cost. Or see the full pricing table with what’s quoted separately.
Six fractional CFO questions, answered straight
Should I hire a controller or a fractional CFO first?
The controller work comes first, because a forecast is only as good as the statements under it. If nobody checks your books each month, a CFO ends up planning from numbers that may be wrong. At Core you don’t have to pick an order. Controller review and CFO advisory are both in the monthly fee, from $5,000 for companies doing $3M-$10M.
How many hours a month does a fractional CFO work?
It depends on the firm. Some sell blocks of hours, and others price by scope. Core prices by revenue band and scope, not by the hour, so a question between calls doesn’t start a meter. The number to watch is your own time. That’s under 5 hours in month one, then under 3 hours a month, review call included.
Can a fractional CFO work with my current CPA?
Plenty of fractional CFOs work next to an outside CPA. Core works differently. Your business return and the owners’ personal returns move to our team at the next filing cycle, and that’s on purpose. When the people closing your books by the 15th also plan your taxes, the tax effect shows up every month... not in April. We handle the handoff with your current preparer.
Does a fractional CFO do my bookkeeping?
Usually not. A typical fractional CFO works from books someone else keeps, and the bookkeeping is billed separately or left to you. At Core, yes. Our team keeps and closes your books by the 15th each month, a controller reviews them, and the CFO work starts from there. All of it is in one monthly fee, from $5,000 for companies doing $3M-$10M.
What does a fractional CFO do in the first 90 days?
At Core, the first 90 days build the monthly rhythm. Month one: we reconcile every account and catch up anything behind, with up to 12 months of catch-up included. Month two: your first monthly package, the rolling cash forecast and a full-year tax projection. Month three: the budget, the owner pay plan and the first quarterly tax plan. Then the monthly loop takes over.
Does a fractional CFO need access to my bank accounts?
Yes, read-only, because a close and a forecast are built from the source records. At Core we ask for read-only access to your bank, card, payroll and payment-processor accounts, plus last year’s returns. We don’t pay bills or move money; your team keeps that. Your books stay in your own QuickBooks Online file, so the records are yours if you ever leave.
A fractional CFO who already knows your books and your tax return.
You can keep doing the math yourself at night, keep the setup you have, or hand all of it to one team. If your numbers looked exactly like this six months from now, would that be okay?
See if we’re a fit →2 minutes. If it’s a fit, you pick a time with Barry. No obligation.