Fractional CFO support for Vancouver companies with investors

Runway is a decision variable, not a statistic

Runway — how many months of operation the current cash supports — is usually quoted as a single number from a simple division. That version is nearly useless, because it ignores the things that actually move it: hiring already committed, a receivable that may or may not land, a tax instalment, and the fact that burn is rarely flat.

A useful runway model is a month-by-month cash projection with the assumptions visible and separable, so the effect of delaying a hire, closing a customer or extending a payable can each be tested individually. That turns runway from a figure quoted at board meetings into the instrument the company steers with, and it is the difference between deciding to cut in month four and being forced to in month one.

A board pack that arrives before the meeting

Investors and board members are not looking for a fuller version of the accounting file. They want a short, consistent package: cash and runway, revenue against plan, the two or three operating metrics the business is actually run on, and a plain explanation of what changed and why. Consistency matters more than depth, because the value comes from comparing this month with the last twelve.

The part that most often fails is timing. A pack circulated the day before the meeting cannot be read, let alone questioned usefully, and a company that is habitually late with its reporting invites a level of scrutiny it would not otherwise attract. Producing it reliably within a set number of days after month end is a process problem, and it is one of the first things part-time CFO support is worth having for.

Modelling a raise before negotiating one

Founders frequently enter a financing conversation without having modelled what the terms do to their own position. How much is being raised, at what valuation, with what option pool created before or after the money, and with what liquidation preference attached — each of those changes the outcome materially, and the interaction between them is not intuitive.

Working the scenarios out beforehand does two things. It makes the negotiation informed rather than reactive, and it forces the question of how much money the company actually needs to reach its next meaningful milestone, which is a more useful framing than raising what is offered. Existing shareholders are entitled to understand the dilution before it happens rather than after.

KPIs that mean the same thing every quarter

Growth companies accumulate metrics, and the definitions drift. Recurring revenue that quietly includes one-off implementation fees, a customer acquisition cost that omits a portion of salary cost, a churn figure calculated on accounts one quarter and on revenue the next — each looks like reporting and is closer to noise.

Fixing it means writing the definitions down, applying them consistently, and reconciling the operating metrics back to the financial statements so the two tell the same story. A company whose reported recurring revenue cannot be tied to its revenue account has a problem that will surface during diligence at the worst possible moment. See the year-end statements page for the reporting side.

Building a company that survives diligence

Everything that has been handled loosely eventually gets examined by someone with no reason to be generous. Contractors who should have been employees, revenue recognized earlier than it was earned, related-party transactions with no documentation, an option pool granted without proper approvals — each is small when it happens and expensive when it is found.

Cleaning those up progressively is much cheaper than remediating them under a deadline while a transaction is live. Part of the value of ongoing financial oversight is simply that somebody is looking at the file with the eventual reader in mind, rather than assembling it for the first time when a term sheet is already on the table.

When to stop using a fractional CFO

This is a role a company should expect to outgrow. Once the finance function needs someone present daily — managing a team, owning systems, sitting in on operating decisions in real time — a part-time arrangement stops being sufficient, and pretending otherwise costs more than the salary would.

Equally, some companies are not there yet. If revenue is early, the shareholder group is two founders, and the immediate need is accurate books and a clean corporate structure, that is what the money should buy. Part-time CFO support is for the middle: too complex for the founder to hold alone, not yet large enough to carry a full-time executive. See what a fractional CFO does.

How the arrangement works

EverStone is a sole practitioner CPA firm with one office, in Abbotsford, and no Vancouver location. Engagements are delivered remotely through video calls, secure document exchange and electronic signature, with scope, cadence and cost agreed in writing before anything begins.

This suits incorporated software and technology companies, production and post-production businesses, and professional services corporations with shareholders who are not in the day-to-day. Because the same CPA also prepares the year end and the corporate return, the reporting rests on figures that reconcile rather than on a parallel model. Related page: Vancouver small-business CPA.