Finances can leave you scratching your head for days when you own a small business. Even if numbers come naturally to you, do you have that kind of time? (Probably not! Your time is worth too much to spend it in this area.)
So what do you do if you need financial work handled but don’t have the budget to hire a full-time CFO? Let’s talk about your options!
At CSI Accounting & Payroll, we’ve worked with small business finances for over 50 years. That means we’ve gotten a lot of questions about financial work, including:
- What is a fractional CFO?
- Should I hire a fractional CFO?
- Why is monthly accounting a good alternative for financial help?
What Is a Fractional CFO?
A fractional CFO, commonly called a partial CFO, is a part-time role in businesses that are not big enough to warrant hiring a full-time CFO. It’s typically an outsourced role (and is very similar to a controller at a large business).
A partial CFO will:
- Run your books on a daily basis.
- Assist with your financial strategy.
- Pay your bills (manage your accounts payable).
- Handle your invoicing (manage your accounts receivable).
Could a partial CFO be the right fit for your business? Let’s learn more in the next section.
Should I Hire a Partial CFO?
Is “fractional CFO” just a buzzword, or do you really need to have one? Even though hiring one sounds appealing to many small businesses, that level of service may not be necessary.
As mentioned in the previous section, partial CFO services include a wide net of financial responsibilities, which is great under a few conditions:
- You have the budget for it.
- You and your administrative employees have no downtime to spend on some of the simpler financial tasks, such as bill pay and invoicing.
- You don’t want to hire anyone else to handle these financial tasks, and you fully trust an outsourced service to pay your bills and collect your money.
- You want all of your financial work to fall under one person, which can have positive or negative consequences.
However, if it sounds like a partial CFO will break the bank, or you’d rather designate invoicing and bill pay as a side task for an existing in-house employee, this may not be the solution for you.
Luckily, there’s another solution: monthly accounting. Let’s talk about its perks in the following section.
Why Is Monthly Accounting a Good Option?
Monthly accounting has some overlap with partial CFO services, but they are not the same thing. For many small businesses, monthly accounting is a better fit in price and services offered.
Monthly accounting includes the bookkeeping and financial advice that you would expect from a partial CFO (although bookkeeping is done monthly, as that’s frequently enough to reconcile the books and generate monthly financial statements).
The biggest difference is that a monthly accountant won’t handle your bill pay or invoicing – and because of that, monthly accounting is a more affordable service than a partial CFO. Plus, there are benefits to keeping your bill pay and invoicing in-house, since they are high-stakes tasks.
You may also hesitate to outsource financial advice, but with CSI Accounting & Payroll, you can call, text, or email your dedicated accountant with unlimited one-off questions and receive a fast, customized response. The best part is that monthly accounting also includes the cost of a complete tax strategy (tax planning, projections, preparation, and filing) in your set monthly fee!
Could monthly accounting be the right fit for you?
Let a Monthly Accountant Take the Reins!
Now that you know what a fractional CFO is, whether or not you should hire one, and how monthly accounting can be a good alternative, are you ready to check out monthly accounting services?
If so, please consider CSI Accounting & Payroll! To see if we can be a good fit for your business, click the button below for a free consultation:
Not ready to talk? That’s okay! First, learn more about the cost of monthly accounting.
