How is this different from an accountant or a bookkeeper?

Bookkeeping records what happened. Accounting makes sure it is correct and compliant. This is about the decisions ahead: what to plan for, which assumptions to test, what the numbers imply for hiring, pricing or raising. It sits alongside your accountant rather than replacing them.

When does a business actually need senior finance support?

Usually when financial decisions start returning to the founder faster than they can be thought through properly. Common triggers are a fundraise coming into view, planning that keeps happening after the problem rather than before it, or reporting that has outgrown the person currently producing it.

Is this a reporting service?

No. Reporting is an input. The work is decision support: bringing senior finance thinking into planning and performance so that the important calls are made with better information, earlier.

Fractional CFO support, when finance stops fitting in the gaps.

Fractional CFO support, also called a virtual CFO: senior finance in the room for the decisions that keep coming back to you.

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Not another reporting layer.

Senior finance thinking for decisions that cannot wait for a full-time CFO.

What stays on the founder's plate today?

Still on the founder's plate

Cash decisions
Budget questions
Performance review
Finance coordination
Investor preparation
Planning
Important trade-offs

Supported through the partnership

Financial leadership
Planning and forecasting
Performance review
Decision support
Reporting rhythm
Accountability

Ongoing, not a one-off project.

Week 1

Review performance.

Week 2

Understand changes and risks.

Week 3

Support upcoming decisions.

Week 4

Plan priorities and follow through.

An example of how a month tends to run. The rhythm follows what the business needs.

Who this fits.

Complexity is increasing

The founder is still the finance bottleneck

Decisions need stronger analysis

Planning needs discipline

A full-time CFO is premature

If this already describes your situation, there is no need to read to the end.

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Finance stops depending on one person's memory.

More consistent visibility, better planning discipline, and stronger support at the moments decisions are actually made.

The questions this work comes down to

Most months, the job is one or two of these. Here is what goes into answering them properly.

Can we afford this hire?: Not just whether the salary fits this month, but what it does to runway, what has to be true for the role to pay for itself, and what the business gives up by hiring here instead of somewhere else.
Are we pricing this correctly?: Unit economics underneath the price: what each customer actually costs to serve, where margin leaks between the quote and the invoice, and which customers are worth more than they look.
How long is our runway, really?: Cash runway against committed spend, statutory dues and the timing of receivables, rather than a bank balance divided by last month's burn.
Should we raise now or wait?: What another two quarters of trading would do to the story, whether the metrics are ready to survive questions, and what preparation has to happen before anyone opens a data room.
Which numbers should we watch?: A short set that changes decisions, defined the same way each month, rather than a dashboard nobody acts on.
Why is the plan always wrong?: Whether the assumptions were testable in the first place, and what a forecast needs to look like to be useful for planning rather than for reporting.

What it costs, honestly.

Two shapes. A numbers check, which takes about a week and ends with one page on what is happening and what to fix first. Or an ongoing monthly arrangement, priced on the rhythm we agree rather than on hours logged.

It costs less than a full-time finance leader and more than bookkeeping, which is the honest position: you are buying judgement on a handful of decisions, not a pair of hands. The number depends on what the business needs, so it comes out of the first conversation rather than a price list.

And if the answer is that you should hire someone full time, or that your accountant already covers this, that is what we will say. When you don’t need a fractional CFO makes that case in full.

What this does not cover

Your accountant still does the accounts

They keep the records right and file what has to be filed. This work starts from those records, it does not produce them.

Sometimes you should just hire someone

A CFO in the business every day sees things a part-time arrangement will miss. If that is what you need, hiring one is the better answer and I will say so.

Nothing here is guaranteed

Better information makes better decisions more likely. It does not make them certain, and anyone promising otherwise is selling something else.

Before you get in touch.

Yes. Virtual CFO, or VCFO, is the common term in India and fractional CFO is more common elsewhere, but both describe senior finance leadership brought in part time rather than hired full time. The distinction people sometimes draw, that virtual means remote and fractional means part time, does not hold up in how the work is actually delivered. This site calls it Strategic Finance because what you are buying is better thinking around decisions, not a job title.

By where you are right now

Seed stageA monthly rhythm, investor reporting and a runway plan, before a full-time hire makes sense.Series A and afterBoard packs, a plan the company is run against, controls, and the first finance hire.How we workThe three shapes an engagement takes, what a month contains, and what it depends on.The first 90 daysWhat the first three months actually produce, in the order they happen.How to choose oneWhat to ask, what to check, and the answers that should end a conversation.We already have a CAWhere your accountant's scope ends, and when it is already enough.When you do not need oneSix situations where hiring finance support is the wrong move.Bootstrapped and profitableCash discipline and better decisions, with no fundraising agenda.

By the kind of business you run

SaaS and softwareARR that reconciles to revenue, honest payback, and exported software handled for GST.IT services and agenciesUtilisation, realisation and margin by project and client.Healthcare and healthtechUnit economics by service line and payer, and the real cost of the GST exemption.Restaurants, QSR and cloud kitchensMargin by outlet and channel after aggregator costs.Bootstrapped businessesFinance for companies paying their own way, with no fundraising agenda.

Worth reading first

The questions founders ask us most often about this, answered in full.

Should we raise our prices?8 min read How much should founders pay themselves after raising?8 min read Will a new product line pay back, and when?8 min read

All insights →

Bring finance into the decisions earlier.

Start with what’s happening →