Fractional CFO
Services & Approach
Fractional CFOs Help You Chart Your Path to Business Value
At FocusCFO, our fractional CFOs utilize a balanced approach that helps businesses take their organizations into the future. We work closely with you, helping business owners and leaders make critical decisions that will ultimately provide a clear vision for growth.
Our CFO services focus on key business systems that indicate financial health: cash flow, operations, internal accounting, and revenue. By having tools in place in each of these areas, businesses can operate at their highest level and achieve sustainable, transferrable value.
The Climb to Value
Mike Davis, President at Junior Achievement
"We needed to know exactly what the numbers were telling us, to be able to make quicker decisions. To stay abreast of the industry, we needed someone to come in and give us information to keep us up to speed.
The benefit of FocusCFO is worth the cost, to give us information we never had before."
Doug Hartley, President of The Hartley Company
Amy Rohling McGee, President at Health Policy Institute of Ohio
Scott Thomas, Owner of Thomas Door Controls, Inc.
- Join a peer group
- Hire a coach or guide
- Implement a business operating system like Pinnacle or EOS
- Hire a CFO, fractional or full-time
Russ Sorrells, Pinnacle Implementer, Leadership Team Guide, Serial Entrepreneur
At Focuscfo, We Make Top-Tier CFO Services Accessible For Small & Mid-Sized Businesses
Let’s face it, running a business is full of challenges. But you don’t have to go it alone: Professional CFO services are within reach (and budget) with a fractional model. Our fractional CFOs have decades of experience navigating these challenges and can build models and strategies to chart your path to health, growth, and value.
Our unique approach leads to maximum impact.
Embedded
C-Level Experience
Team Approach
Questions we get asked often
Yes, you can afford an experienced CFO! Scaling a company comes with decisions that may feel beyond the scope of expertise for an entrepreneur, but forward-focused strategy is within your reach (and budget) with a Fractional CFO.
A better question to ask yourself might be, "What is it costing my business to not have a CFO?"
Consider bringing on a fractional CFO when you need to do critical forward planning–when your business is up and running with many spinning plates, but you’re not sure where to take it next. At this point you need someone to make sense of the financials. The only person who truly understands the economics of a business—what actually makes it work—is a chief financial officer. You have some data, you know who you’re serving and what they are buying, but your CFO will help you understand your business and the overall dynamics better than you ever thought you would. They will help turn the data you have into information and actionable insight.
This isn’t an expense, this is an investment. A CFO should pay for themselves multiple times over!
The lack of a CFO’s direction leads to many lost opportunities to price your products and services properly, to manage your inventories better, and to separate good customers from bad customers.
There are many hidden costs in doing business, such as the cost of maintaining a demanding client. Its margin on variable costs may be the same, but because of the additional management time and hand holding it’s different.
What does it cost a business to not bring on a CFO? A CFO will peel back the onion, at which point you’ll most likely find that you’re not making money in one or more areas of your business. It’s not unusual for a company to be losing money and have no idea where it’s going.
It’s hard to see without actually running the numbers, which many people don’t really know how to do.
Our services are perfect for newly established, small, and growing organizations requiring CFO-level services that are scaled to their needs and budget.
There is a growing number of baby boomers who want to remain in the workplace - including a community of highly experienced chief financial officers. This provides a unique opportunity for small and mid-sized businesses to tap into their knowledge and expertise.
The fractional CFO model is a win-win relationship. Your business benefits from their extensive Aren’t most CFO’s overqualified for my business? experience, at a fraction of a full-time CFO. Average engagement for our clients is one half or one full day per week.
From the CFO’s perspective, they benefit from the intellectual challenge of working with several businesses simultaneously, making an impact in their community, as well as having greater control over their work schedule.
Beyond simply not knowing that they need a CFO, many simply don’t want to spend the money.
What many entrepreneurs don’t realize is that they’re already spending that money in lost profits, lost opportunities and misspending (see below for more on this). They’re not seeing the bigger picture and don’t understand the dynamics of the business from the educated financial point of view that a seasoned financial professional can bring.
You can’t always go with your gut in making financial decisions, which is what a lot of entrepreneurs try to do.
- Business planning
- Business foundation
- Maximizing cash flow
- Assessing operational efficiency
- Improving internal accounting
- Revenue and sales pipeline
- Construction
- Development
- Distribution
- Manufacturing
- Not-for-Profit
- Retail
- Service Companies
FocusCFO is not a certified public accounting firm—while many of us worked as CPAs in the past, today we play a much different role.
Most firms start out with a tax return person. A classic accountant who is in charge of the rear-view mirror. The only period of time being examined by an accountant is the past year, which is a bit late for decision making, and only at the level of detail needed to satisfy the IRS. The accounting firm has only your tax return in mind and classically assigns expenses to categories that are only appropriate for your tax return and not for running a business.
A CFO, on the other hand, provides actionable forward-focused strategy. We understand that having the best grasp possible of your business is the key to making the biggest impact on future growth. That’s why our CFO services are designed to engage all of the key people involved in your company’s financial operations.
Just like any in-house CFO, our fractional CFOs will partner with—not replace—your existing finance team. Our CFOs provide support and leadership for both internal (for example, your bookkeeper, accountant, and/or controller) and external members (CPA firm, banks, etc.).
Working as a team with the people who can offer insight and advice in key business areas—such as your outside CPA, banker, and internal accountant—is not just beneficial; it’s essential.
In fact, our clients’ finance teams typically welcome the addition of our CFOs. Their work often becomes more productive and less time consuming and they find they are able to ‘work smarter.’