What a Fractional CFO Actually Does (And Why Most Small Businesses Need One)
Most small businesses can't afford a full-time CFO. But the work a CFO does — cash flow forecasting, KPI tracking, pricing strategy — is exactly what keeps businesses alive.
You're running a business. You've got a bookkeeper handling the transactions and maybe an accountant who shows up at tax time. But nobody is watching the patterns — the slow margin erosion, the customer who generates revenue but costs you money after rework, the cash crunch that's 30 days away.
That's the gap a fractional CFO fills.
What a CFO actually does (that your bookkeeper doesn't)
A bookkeeper records what happened. An accountant files what's required. A CFO looks forward and asks: what's coming, and what do we do about it?
Here's the actual work:
Cash flow forecasting
Not "how much is in the account today" — but what does the next 30, 60, 90 days look like? When do receivables land? When do payables hit? Is there a gap? Most small business cash crises are predictable 3-4 weeks in advance. A CFO catches them.
KPI tracking across your whole operation
Revenue is one number. But what about gross margin trend? Days sales outstanding? Customer concentration risk? Revenue per employee? Expense growth rate vs. revenue growth rate? These are the metrics that tell you if your business is actually healthy — or just busy.
Pricing strategy
Are you actually making money on every job? When you factor in loaded labor costs (wages + benefits + workers' comp + vehicle), materials, and overhead allocation — what's the real margin? A CFO runs that math and tells you which services to raise rates on.
Vendor and expense analysis
Is that software subscription you signed up for two years ago still delivering value? Has your insurance renewal quietly gone up 20%? Are you spending more on materials this quarter than last — and if so, is it volume or price? A CFO watches these patterns.
Financial reporting that means something
Not a P&L dump. A structured analysis: here's what changed, here's why, here's what to do about it. Monthly, with context. The kind of report that starts a productive conversation instead of collecting dust.
Why "fractional" makes sense for small businesses
A full-time CFO costs $150K-$250K in salary alone. That's not realistic for a business doing $1M-$10M in revenue. But the work is still critical.
A fractional CFO gives you the strategic financial oversight without the full-time cost. They typically work with multiple businesses, bring cross-industry pattern recognition, and focus on the highest-impact work each month.
The problem with traditional fractional CFOs
Most fractional CFOs are doing this work manually. They pull reports from QuickBooks, build spreadsheets, and prepare for your monthly call. That means they're spending hours on data collection and formatting — time that could be spent on strategy.
And between calls? Nobody's watching. If a cash flow problem develops on day 3 after your monthly meeting, you won't hear about it for another 27 days.
What if the heavy lifting was automated?
That's exactly why we built Omnyra.
The platform connects to your QuickBooks, bank accounts, payroll, and operational tools. It runs 131+ business rules and calculates 42 KPIs automatically — 24/7. When something triggers (cash runway dropping, invoices overdue, margins eroding), an alert fires immediately with the exact transactions behind it.
Your advisor doesn't spend the call explaining what the numbers say. They already know. The call starts with: "Your margins improved since we adjusted pricing, but I'm seeing a new expense pattern I want to walk through."
That's the difference between a CFO service that reacts once a month and one that monitors every day.
Is it right for your business?
If you're an owner-operator running a business and any of these sound familiar:
- You check your bank balance but don't really know your cash runway
- You're not sure which customers or jobs are actually profitable
- Your bookkeeper records transactions but nobody analyzes the trends
- You've been surprised by a cash crunch that "came out of nowhere"
- You know you should be tracking more metrics but don't know where to start
Then you need what a CFO provides. Whether that's a traditional fractional CFO, a platform like Omnyra, or both — the important thing is that someone (or something) is watching the patterns, not just the transactions.
Book a free strategy call and we'll walk through what monitoring looks like for your specific business.