FAQs | Fractional CFO Services for Founders & Investors

A fractional CFO is a part-time or on-demand financial executive who brings high-level financial strategy, forecasting, and decision support to your business—without the cost of a full-time hire. Bright CFO works closely with founders, business owners, and investors to provide strategic financial oversight, scalable systems, and support across fundraising, growth, and exits.

You should hire a fractional CFO when your business has outgrown basic bookkeeping or controller services and you need help with forecasting, cash flow planning, investor reporting, strategic decisions, or preparing for fundraising or a sale. Whether you're a SaaS startup planning to raise a Series A or a services company aiming to improve margins, a fractional CFO brings clarity and rigor to the process.

Costs vary depending on company complexity, size, and service level. Most Bright CFO clients invest between $3,000 and $10,000 per month—far less than the $250K+ cost of a full-time CFO—while still receiving senior-level support customized to their stage and needs.

A bookkeeper records day-to-day transactions. An accountant prepares financial statements and taxes. A CFO provides strategic insight—forecasting cash flow, managing financial operations, analyzing KPIs, supporting decisions, and representing your business to investors or buyers. In short, the CFO turns data into strategy.

Yes. We support early-stage startups scaling toward Series A or B, as well as established services businesses preparing for exit. Our engagements range from short-term diagnostics to long-term fractional support.

We begin with a discovery call and quick diagnostic. From there, we customize an engagement—monthly retainer, project-based, or investor/due-diligence support. We become your financial partner, focused on impact, clarity, and results.

It depends on your industry. For SaaS and tech companies: Rule of 40, MRR/ARR, CAC, CAC payback, LTV, Net Revenue Retention, churn, and gross margin are critical. For services businesses: EBITDA margin, profit as a % of revenue, OpEx as a % of revenue, revenue per employee, and cash conversion cycle are key. In both models, tracking these metrics over time and against benchmarks helps drive better decisions.

For companies with sales teams or B2B pipelines, important metrics include pipeline coverage ratio (pipeline vs quota), conversion rate by funnel stage, weighted pipeline value, new bookings vs forecast, renewals and churn forecasts. These help connect financial planning to sales execution.

SaaS businesses are valued on recurring revenue and retention, while service companies are evaluated on margins, utilization, and cash flow. Each model has different operating levers, so finance should tailor KPI tracking and dashboards to your business model and stage.

By analyzing margin trends, cost structures, pricing models, and sales performance data, finance can spot where the business is leaking value—or has room to grow. For example, we helped a services client increase profitability by shifting from hourly to retainer pricing and re-scoping underperforming contracts.

A strong CFO is a feedback loop for Sales, Marketing, and Ops. Finance should support product roadmaps with ROI modeling, help Sales forecast bookings and ramp quotas, and work with Marketing to align CAC with payback and LTV. Strategic finance connects the dots between departments to help the business scale efficiently.

Top-down budgets start from revenue targets and allocate spending accordingly. Bottom-up budgets build from departmental needs. Zero-based budgets assume no carryover from prior periods and require all expenses to be justified. Each has pros and cons—we often blend methods based on the company’s needs.

At minimum, forecasts should be updated quarterly, and budgets annually. High-growth or cash-sensitive businesses often reforecast monthly. A good forecast adapts to reality and informs decisions—not just reporting.

It should be dynamic, driver-based, and clearly linked to real-world assumptions—like new customer acquisition, churn, pricing, headcount plans, and COGS. A good model helps you test scenarios, track actuals vs plan, and support strategic decisions.

Start with current cash balance, then layer in receivables timing, collections %, forecasted new sales by revenue stream, churned revenue, and planned expenses. This helps project cash inflows and outflows realistically across weeks or months.

Investors typically look at growth rate, gross margin, net revenue retention (for SaaS), EBITDA, EBITDA margin, and cash runway. They also care about revenue concentration, churn risk, and overall scalability.

Valuation depends on the business model, industry multiples, growth rate, margin profile, and risk. We guide clients on market comps, normalize EBITDA, and model expected deal structures—including seller notes, earn-outs, and equity rollover.

A CFO prepares clean, audit-ready financials, leads diligence, helps negotiate terms, and ensures you're telling a consistent, credible financial story. Having strategic support during a deal can reduce stress, preserve value, and increase your chances of a successful close.

Raise capital when you have a clear use of funds, a credible growth plan, and limited ability to scale on cash flow alone. We help you assess dilution, runway, valuation, and ideal investor profile to decide how much to raise—and when.

If burn is rising, margins are shrinking, or revenue isn’t scaling with headcount, it may be time to reassess costs. We often recommend reviewing OpEx quarterly to identify trends before they become problems.

Fixed costs include rent and software subscriptions. Variable costs include sales commissions or fulfillment costs. Labor = salaries and contractors. Non-labor = tools, travel, marketing. Identifying these helps with smarter tradeoffs.

Benchmark OpEx categories as a % of revenue vs your industry and stage. For example, G&A should often be under 15% of revenue for growing companies. We guide clients to right-size spending without cutting growth potential.

If you have high margin potential, strong retention, and proven demand, it may be time to lean into growth. A solid forecast will show whether you can afford the investment and how quickly it will pay off.