What does a fractional CFO cost?

Commonly several hundred to a few thousand a month depending on days, seniority and market. Worth getting two or three quotes; the range is wide and scope varies a lot.

Can Eliv8 OS replace one?

Not for the senior work — it cannot sit in a funding negotiation or sign off on a transaction, and you should not want software to. What it does is cover the days a fractional CFO is not there, which is most of them. That usually means needing less of the person, not none of them.

What should I fix before hiring one?

Clean books and knowing what individual jobs actually make. A CFO working from unreliable numbers produces confident conclusions built on sand, and you pay for both.

← Answers

Do I need a fractional CFO?

Usually not until the decisions get big enough that being wrong is expensive — raising money, buying a business, a sale, or complex financing. Below that, most owners do not have a CFO-shaped problem. They have numbers they cannot see clearly and nobody to think out loud with, which is a different and cheaper thing to fix.

What a fractional CFO actually does

Financial strategy at the level above bookkeeping: modelling, funding, structuring a deal, building the reporting a board or a lender expects. Experienced people doing high-stakes work a few days a month, typically several hundred to a few thousand a month depending on scope and market.

The three roles get confused constantly

A bookkeeper records what happened. An accountant files, advises on tax and structure, and signs things. A CFO decides what the numbers mean and what to do next. Most small businesses need the first two reliably and the third only occasionally — and hire the wrong one because the titles blur.

When it is genuinely worth it

A transaction with real money at stake, lenders or investors who need convincing, or complexity you cannot hold in your head. If you are raising money or selling, the fee is small against getting it wrong. That is a real yes.

When it is not

If the actual problem is that you do not know your margin by job, are guessing at cash, and want somebody to argue a decision through with — that is not a CFO-scale problem. Fix the visibility first, and you may find the question answers itself.

The fractional model is already a compromise — worth understanding why

Nobody hires two days a month because two days is the right amount. They do it because full-time is unaffordable. So the model already accepts that for the other eighteen working days you are on your own — and the decisions do not wait for the scheduled day. Whether to hold a price, whether this job is worth taking, whether you can carry another wage: those land on a Tuesday.

What changes the size of the person you need

If the daily thinking is covered — the books read, the margin visible, the decision argued through while it is actually in front of you — then what is left for a senior finance person is the genuinely senior work: the transaction, the funding round, the thing that has to be signed. That is fewer days, or only when it matters, rather than a permanent retainer to cover a gap.

Also asked

What does a fractional CFO cost?: Commonly several hundred to a few thousand a month depending on days, seniority and market. Worth getting two or three quotes; the range is wide and scope varies a lot.
Can Eliv8 OS replace one?: Not for the senior work — it cannot sit in a funding negotiation or sign off on a transaction, and you should not want software to. What it does is cover the days a fractional CFO is not there, which is most of them. That usually means needing less of the person, not none of them.
What should I fix before hiring one?: Clean books and knowing what individual jobs actually make. A CFO working from unreliable numbers produces confident conclusions built on sand, and you pay for both.

Written for your trade

This is the kind of thing Solomon works through with owners using their own numbers. See how it works →