Fractional v Full-time CFO: What do you need?

Most business owners ask me: “Can we afford a CFO?”

But that’s the wrong question.

The real question is: “What’s the cost of running another year without high-level financial insight?”

Because whether you’re at $1M or $20M in revenue, I’ve seen far too many capable business owners stumble — not because they aren’t smart, but because they’re making big decisions without the right financial lens.

The Silent Cost of Guesswork

The numbers are clear: businesses lose hundreds of thousands each year not because they’re careless, but because they’re flying blind.

The patterns repeat themselves:

• Cash flow shocks that force desperate last-minute decisions.

• Margins slowly eroding because no one’s tracking profitability by product, client, or service line.

• Bottlenecks that look operational but are actually financial infrastructure problems.

It’s not a question of if these things are happening in your business. It’s a question of whether you’re seeing them in time to act.

Why Fractional CFOs Fit Most $1M–$20M Businesses

Hiring a full-time CFO at $250K–$350K p.a. doesn’t make sense for most SMEs. The financial complexity just isn’t at that level.

But not having CFO-level oversight at all? That’s where the real risk lies.

Fractional CFOs sit in the sweet spot: you get a senior executive, but only for the hours or days you need. You access the same strategic insight as larger businesses — but without the full-time salary.

And often, the ROI of that input far exceeds the cost.

What I Actually Do as a Fractional CFO

This isn’t bookkeeping with a fancier title. A fractional CFO brings senior-level insight that changes the way decisions get made:

• Forecasting that drives decisions.
  What happens if you hire another salesperson, expand interstate, or launch a new product? I build financial models that answer those “what if” questions before you commit dollars.

• Cash flow that stops keeping you awake at night.
  Not just knowing your bank balance, but projecting it 13 weeks ahead, and 12 months ahead. Predicting the pinch points, structuring payments, and ensuring payroll is never a guessing game.

• Clarity on what really drives profit.
  Custom dashboards that show you — in plain English — which products, clients or services are worth scaling, and which are quietly draining cash.

• Tax strategy year-round, not crisis-mode in March.
  Identifying opportunities and structuring decisions to protect cash. Often this alone covers the cost of my work.

• Support with capital, growth, or exit.
  From raising funds to preparing a business for sale, I help build the financial infrastructure that maximises valuation.

When Full-Time CFOs Make Sense

There’s no one-size-fits-all. Full-time CFOs absolutely have their place — typically when:

• You’re running daily complex operations that require constant financial input.

• You’ve grown to 50+ employees and multi-department structures.

• You’ve got active investors or a board that needs consistent representation.

• Your industry is highly regulated and compliance risk is a daily issue.

But for most $1M–$20M businesses? Fractional CFOs hit the mark.

Strategic Finance vs Traditional Accounting

Here’s the real distinction:

• Traditional accounting looks backwards. It tells you what happened.

• Strategic finance looks forwards. It helps you decide what happens next.

That’s the difference between hoping your decisions will pay off — and knowing they will.

In Summary

If you’re in that $1M–$20M range, the question isn’t “do we need a CFO?” — it’s “how do we access CFO-level expertise in a way that fits our stage and scale?”

For most, the answer isn’t a full-time hire. It’s a fractional CFO: senior financial leadership, scalable to your needs, with the ROI to match.

And the result? Turning financial data into strategic intelligence that powers confident growth — without the full-time price tag.