Fractional CFO
Finance leadership without the full-time hire.
For owner-managed businesses past the bookkeeper stage and not yet ready for a full-time CFO. Monthly or quarterly, scoped in writing, with a CPA who has built the function inside an operating business.
The gap
The books are current. The decisions still feel like guesses.
Most owner-managed businesses reach a point where the compliance work is handled and the management information is not. The bank balance is the forecast. Margin is a feeling. The bank asks for a covenant calculation and it takes a week to produce.
That gap is not a bookkeeping problem and it is rarely solved by better software. It is a missing seat. Someone has to own the close, build the forecast, and translate the statements into the two or three decisions in front of you this quarter.
The engagement
What the seat covers.
Scoped to the business. Most engagements draw on some of the following rather than all of it.
Monthly
Close and reporting pack
A close that lands on a date you can plan around, and a reporting pack that shows the month, the year to date, and the variance against what you expected. Prepared so the numbers are the same ones your accountant will file from.
Forward
Cash flow forecasting
A rolling forecast built on your actual collection and payment patterns rather than an annual budget nobody revisits. Updated as reality moves, so a tight month is visible before it arrives.
Margin
Unit economics and profitability
Margin broken out by the thing that actually drives your business: job, product, location, client, channel. Most owners discover at this point that a meaningful slice of revenue earns nothing.
Planning
Budgets and scenarios
An annual plan with the assumptions written down, and the ability to run a version of it before you commit to a hire, a lease or a price change.
Stakeholders
Lender and board reporting
Covenant calculations, lender packages and investor or board reporting prepared to the standard those readers expect, on the schedule they expect it.
Systems
Process and systems
Chart of accounts that supports decisions rather than just filings, a close checklist that survives staff turnover, and the controls a business needs once more than one person touches the money.
Why here
Built from the inside.
David built the finance function for a real estate group operating six entities in Canada and the United States, covering monthly reporting, controllership and forecasting. That work was done inside the business rather than as an outside adviser.
Before that, a Big 4 firm, assurance and internal controls, FP&A, and sell-side M&A advisory. The assurance background is why the reporting holds up. The transaction background is why the numbers are built the way a buyer or a lender will want to read them.
He has also hired outside accountants, reviewed their files and paid their invoices, which shapes his view of what a client should get for the fee.
Common questions
Questions owners ask.
How is this different from bookkeeping?
Bookkeeping records what happened. This is the layer above it: deciding what the numbers mean, what they say about next quarter, and what to do about it. The bookkeeping has to be right first, and DSJM can do that part too, but they are separate jobs.
Do I need to be a certain size?
There is no revenue threshold. The useful test is whether you are making decisions you would rather not make on instinct: a hire, a price change, a lease, a line of credit, a second location. If those questions are arriving and the numbers are not answering them, the seat is worth filling.
Is this a long-term commitment?
No. Engagements are monthly or quarterly and scoped in writing. Some run for a defined stretch around a financing or a system change and then stop. Others become the standing rhythm of the business.
Can you work with our existing bookkeeper?
Yes, and often that is the better arrangement. If your bookkeeping already works, there is no reason to move it.
Scope and fees are agreed in writing before any work starts.
Next step
Book a call.
Fifteen or twenty minutes, no charge. You describe the situation, David tells you whether he can help and what it would cost.
(778) 980-7276
info@dsjmaccounting.com