Fractional Controller Services

How Fractional Controllers and CFOs Add Value

The key factor in determining the need for Fractional Controllers is who is making financially impactful decisions. In a small owner-operated business, the owner often handles all significant choices, beyond just ordering office supplies. In such cases, our cash-based programs are ideal.

However, as businesses grow and line managers begin making impactful decisions, a structured approach becomes essential for accountability and expense management. Our Fractional Controller services provide weekly bookkeeping while effectively managing cash flow to support the needs of small businesses.

Accounting as a Service

For less than the monthly cost of a bookkeeper, we can establish a fractional accounting department tailored to your needs. We’ll either set up a fully outsourced accounting department for you or collaborate with you in a hybrid model. Typically, you will manage your own invoicing, while we streamline your bill payments and transition you to a purchase order system instead of relying solely on credit cards.

Each month, we’ll review your financial statements to identify any potential red flags. If everything looks good, these reviews may only require brief 15-minute calls. However, if we uncover any issues or areas of concern, we’ll conduct a thorough analysis together to address them before they escalate.

How Cash Allocation and Financial Strategy Work Together

Small businesses live and die by cash flow, not accrual profit reports. But line managers need to be able to operate within budgets that they know at the beginning of the month, not the end of the month. This may often involve a hybrid strategy where each month we set budgets for operations two months out and learn to operate within those budgets. It may involve building sufficient cash reserves so that budgets can be set on a monthly basis. Alternatively, it may involve setting up systems where we separate the forced spending and the needed spending, where the former hits every month (think rent and payroll), but the latter may have some timing flexibility (a website overhaul or equipment purchases.

As your business grows, small changes can have a big impact. A 10% improvement at a $500,000 company is now $50,000, which may allow you to hire an entire additional employee to grow your business. When your business was grossing $100,000, that improvement might have been ignored while you chased growth. As you grow your business into the over $1 Million range, these changes become more and more important.

How Is Contract Accounting Different?

We consider the Fractional Controller part of our AaaS (Accounting as a Service) program, our cloud-based approach to outsourced accounting. Normally outsourced accounting focuses on legacy systems like accounts receivable and accountants payable, our Fractional Controller focuses on developing the metrics you need to run your business, which at the Fractional Controller stage is based upon cash-based budgeting and expenditures.

Moving your bookkeeping to weekly with monthly reviews helps everyone stay on top of things before problems can spiral out of control. You will find that this actually frees up time for you because your weekly financial reviews will be quick and make sure your business stays on track, replacing the hours of spreadsheets and bank account checking you may be doing now.

This Program’s Return on Investment