How to hire a fractional CFO.

Most founders wait too long. The finance function is the last thing that gets professionalized, right up until it breaks in front of the board. If two or more of these are true, you are already late:

• You are raising a priced round in the next six months and your model was built by the CEO on a Sunday.
• Revenue is somewhere between $2M and $20M ARR and the KPI deck changes definitions every board meeting.
• Burn is climbing and no one can tell you why, per department, without three days of Slack digging.
• A lender, auditor, or acquirer wants clean GAAP financials and you are still on cash-basis QuickBooks.
• You are pricing a new product line and there is no unit-economics model that survives a five-minute VC question.
• You want to sleep. Cash forecasting should not be a founder task after Series A.

A fractional CFO plugs into that gap for a fixed monthly fee and stays until you either grow into a full-time hire or the trigger event closes.

Draw the line clearly, in writing, before you sign. A working scope:

• Forecast and plan. A rebuilt annual operating model, a rolling 13-week cash forecast, and a driver-based revenue model tied to your CRM and product data.
• Board and investor reporting. A five-page monthly board deck, KPI definitions locked, cohort and retention math you can defend.
• Fundraising. Data room, metrics narrative, model in the format investors expect, and side-by-side seat during diligence.
• Finance ops. Chart of accounts, monthly close under 15 days, revenue recognition, sales tax nexus, and audit prep if you need it.
• Strategic finance. Pricing, packaging, sales comp, unit economics by segment, and build-versus-buy decisions.

They do not run payroll, chase AR, or reconcile bank feeds. That is the bookkeeper's job. If your fractional CFO is doing bookkeeping, you are overpaying by a factor of five.

Pricing clusters by seniority and hours. Current market ranges:

• Light-touch ($5k to $8k per month) — 10 to 12 hours a week, one active workstream (usually the annual model or a raise). Ex-Big-4 senior manager or VP Finance profile.
• Full CFO seat ($9k to $15k per month) — 15 to 25 hours a week, owns forecast, board, and finance ops. Ex-CFO or ex-VP Finance from a scaled startup.
• Executive-plus ($16k to $25k per month) — ex-public-company CFO, IPO or M&A experience, board-level closing help.

Blended over a 12-month engagement, a full CFO seat runs $110k to $180k all-in, versus $350k to $500k fully loaded for a full-time hire at Series B levels. See our full fractional executive cost guide for benchmarks across every function.

Write a one-page SOW before the second call. It should name the milestone, the working hours, the deliverables, and the exit clause. A working template:

• Milestone. Close a $12M Series A by Q2, or hit a 15-day monthly close by day 90.
• Hours. 20 hours per week, mostly Tuesday to Thursday, on your Slack.
• Deliverables. Weekly cash update, monthly board deck, quarterly re-forecast, ad-hoc modeling.
• Reporting line. To the CEO, with a dotted line to the audit committee if you have one.
• Exit. 30-day written notice either way, no equity clawback, IP assignment for models and dashboards.

Start with a 90-day pilot. Anyone who insists on a 12-month lock-in before you have worked together is optimizing for their retainer, not your outcome.

The interview loop that actually works:

1. Working session, not a pitch. Share a sanitized version of your current model and ask them to rebuild one tab live. You are hiring their thinking, not their deck.
2. Board-deck teardown. Show your last board deck. Ask what they would cut, what they would add, and which metric would embarrass them. Silence is a bad sign.
3. Reference the CEO who fired them. Every fractional CFO has had an engagement end. Ask which one, and why. If they cannot name one, they are junior or dishonest.
4. Fundraise reference. If a raise is in scope, talk to a founder they helped raise for. Ask about model defensibility under diligence, not just outcome.
5. Bench check. Great CFOs come with a bookkeeper, an FP&A contractor, a banker, and a lawyer they trust. Ask for three warm intros in the first 30 days.

By day 30, a competent fractional CFO has shipped four things: a 13-week cash forecast, a rebuilt operating model, a KPI dashboard the CEO trusts, and a finance-ops audit that names the top five risks. If any of those is missing, the engagement is behind.

By day 60, the monthly close should be under 15 days and the board deck should not require a founder rewrite. By day 90, you should be debating strategic questions (pricing, sales comp, gross margin expansion) instead of arguing about the numbers themselves.

• Hiring a bookkeeper as a CFO. If their last title was Senior Accountant, they will keep books beautifully and never challenge a pricing decision. That is a controller, not a CFO.
• Treating them like a consultant. Fractional CFOs embed. Give them Slack, an email address, and a seat at leadership meetings, or you will get consulting output.
• No exit clause. The engagement will end. Write the offboarding plan on day one so models, dashboards, and institutional knowledge stay with the company.
• Paying in equity only. Equity-only fractional deals attract operators who cannot get cash retainers elsewhere. Pay market cash. Add equity if the fit is real.

What does a fractional CFO actually do?

A fractional CFO owns forecasting, cash management, board reporting, unit economics, fundraising prep, and the finance stack. At Seed to Series B, they typically run for 15 to 25 hours per week and hand off tactical work to a controller or bookkeeper.

When should a startup hire a fractional CFO?

The usual triggers are: raising a priced round in the next six months, revenue crossing $2M ARR, burn rate that no one can defend to the board, a pricing or packaging decision the CEO cannot model, or a lender/audit event that needs GAAP-clean books.

How much does a fractional CFO cost in 2026?

Most fractional CFOs charge $6,000 to $15,000 per month for 15 to 25 hours per week. Ex-public-company CFOs with IPO or exit experience run $18,000 to $25,000 per month. Equity is uncommon; when granted it is typically 0.10 to 0.35 percent, fully vested over two years.

Fractional CFO vs. controller vs. full-time CFO?

A controller runs the books and closes the month. A fractional CFO owns forward-looking finance: forecast, board deck, fundraising, and strategic finance. A full-time CFO makes sense once you cross roughly $25M ARR or you are 12 months from an IPO or major transaction.

How long does a fractional CFO engagement last?

Six to eighteen months is standard. Founders typically start with a 90-day sprint tied to a specific milestone (Series A raise, annual plan, refinancing) and extend once the operating rhythm proves out.

What should a fractional CFO deliver in the first 30 days?

A clean 13-week cash forecast, a rebuilt annual operating model, a board-ready KPI dashboard, and a finance-ops audit (accounting close, entity structure, tax, insurance, banking). If they cannot ship that in 30 days, the engagement is off track.

Do I still need a bookkeeper?

Yes. A fractional CFO is not a bookkeeper. Keep an outsourced or in-house bookkeeper for daily transactions, and let the CFO own the numbers that reach the board.