Contract CFO services: a fractional CFO or controller
Updated
Two roles, one engagement. A contract CFO decides what to do about the numbers; a controller makes them right and readable first. Most growing businesses need the controller before the CFO, and eventually both.
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Quick answer: A fractional engagement gives you a defined month-end close, a reporting pack you can act on, budgets, cash forecasting and audit readiness (the controller half). It adds the pricing, capital and hiring decisions those figures inform, which is the CFO half. Scoped by deliverable, at a fixed monthly fee.
Who does the work: a Chartered Professional Accountant prepares and reviews your file and answers your questions, from the first quote to the filed return. About EverStone CPA.
A contract CFO, a CFO for hire, a part-time or interim CFO, a CFO consultant: the names differ, but the engagement here is one thing. It is a fractional CFO by the month, run online for businesses in BC, Alberta, Ontario and Manitoba, with a fractional controller for the close and the numbers beneath it.
Controller and CFO support, in one view
Accurate monthly reporting is the controller’s job. Deciding what to do about it is the CFO’s. Most engagements start with the first.
Who it suits
- Growing companies where the owner decides from the bank balance
- Businesses reporting to a lender, partner or investor
- Owners planning a hire, a price change or financing
What is included
- Controller: a month-end close to an agreed date
- Controller: a management reporting pack and budget comparison
- CFO: cash flow forecasts, margin analysis and decision support
- Each engagement is scoped to the deliverables you choose
Outside the standard scope
- Bookkeeping, priced separately from $325 a month
- Year-end and T2, quoted on their own
- Audits or review engagements
- Any promise of financing approval or a particular result
What you provide
- Access to the accounting system and bank feeds
- A bookkeeper, ours or yours, keeping the records current
- Budgets, contracts and pipeline information you have
- An agreed time each month to review the numbers
How it works
- Tell us what you produce today and who reads it
- Written scope, deliverable dates and a fixed monthly fee
- Cleanup in the first months scoped separately
- Monthly, with no minimum term
What affects the fee
- Which deliverables are in scope
- Number of entities and bank accounts
- Reporting frequency and audience
- State of the books on day one
Controller support starts at $1,650 a month and CFO support at $2,750 a month. Not every deliverable is included at the starting fee.
What a monthly reporting pack can look like
An illustrative extract with fictional figures. Real packs are built around the numbers your business runs on.
Sample Trades Ltd., management report, September
Budget comparison and a 13-week cash view, as delivered after the month-end close.
| September | Actual | Budget | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 184,600 | 176,000 | 8,600 |
| Direct costs | 112,900 | 104,300 | (8,600) |
| Gross margin | 71,700 | 71,700 | 0 |
| Gross margin % | 38.8% | 40.7% | (1.9 pts) |
| Overheads | 48,200 | 50,000 | 1,800 |
| Operating income | 23,500 | 21,700 | 1,800 |
The note that goes with it: revenue beat budget, but materials ran over on two jobs, so margin fell. Worth a pricing review before the next quotes go out.
Three levels, and most businesses climb them in order
Every figure below is a real starting point. Your fixed fee is quoted in writing before work begins, and reviewed as the business changes, never raised without warning.
Monthly bookkeeping
- Every account reconciled monthly, not just the bank
- Consistent coding to a chart of accounts built for you
- Sales tax prepared and filed on your period
- Payroll run and remitted, with the slips at year end
Fractional controller
- A month-end close run to a checklist on a stated day
- A reporting pack that lands within ten working days
- Budget and rolling forecast, refreshed not written once
- Thirteen-week cash forecast and working capital
- Audit and review readiness built through the year
- Oversight of whoever keeps the books, yours or ours
Fractional CFO
- Everything in the controller tier
- Pricing and margin by job, product or customer
- Financing, covenant reporting and lender conversations
- Hiring and capacity costed before you commit
- Exit or sale preparation when it comes
Monthly, with no minimum term or locked-in contract. Cleanup in the first ninety days is scoped and quoted separately.
Five deliverables, five pages
The engagement is scoped by deliverable rather than by hours, because what you want is a close finished by a date and a pack you can use.
Management reporting
A monthly pack with profit and loss against budget, the balance sheet, cash, and the few measures that run your business.
Learn more →Budgeting & forecasting
A budget built from operations rather than last year plus ten, and a rolling forecast that updates when reality disagrees.
Learn more →Cash flow management
A rolling thirteen-week forecast, working capital, and the obligations that arrive on a calendar rather than with the work.
Learn more →Audit & review readiness
Working papers assembled through the year, so an external engagement costs what it was quoted.
Learn more →Which level you need
Bookkeeper, controller or CFO. The three own different questions, and buying the wrong one is expensive.
Learn more →Contract CFO, fractional CFO, CFO for hire: five names, one engagement
The same part-time senior finance role is searched for under half a dozen names, and the names carry different expectations. This is what each usually means and how it maps onto what is sold here. On this page, contract CFO services means that same fractional engagement, run by the month and scoped by deliverable rather than by hours.
| The name | What it usually means | Here |
|---|---|---|
| Contract CFO | A CFO engaged under a contract rather than employed; often a defined term | Yes: an engagement letter, a fixed monthly fee, no term you cannot leave |
| Fractional or part-time CFO | A share of a CFO’s month, recurring | Yes: the CFO tier, from $2,750 a month, scoped by deliverable |
| Interim or temporary CFO | Full-time cover for a vacancy, usually on site | Not offered: this is a part-time engagement, not a seat to fill |
| CFO for hire or CFO consultant | Project work: a financing, a sale, a restructuring | Yes, when the project needs a CPA’s numbers; quoted as a fixed project fee |
| Fractional controller | The month-end close, the reporting and the forecast beneath the CFO | Yes: the controller tier, from $1,650 a month, and most businesses start there |
“Near me” searches deserve a straight answer too: every client, in the Fraser Valley or elsewhere, is served online by the same CPA.
Contract CFO or controller: what each one gets you
Ten things a fractional engagement produces. The controller half owns whether the numbers are right and readable; the CFO half owns what to do about them. Most businesses buy the controller half first. Every row links to what that deliverable actually involves.
| What you get | Controller from $1,650/mo | Fractional CFO from $2,750/mo |
|---|---|---|
| Month-end close | Owns it — runs the checklist to a date | — |
| Management reporting | Builds and delivers the pack | Reads it and acts on it |
| Budgeting & forecasting | Builds and maintains the model | Sets the assumptions |
| Cash flow management | Owns the 13-week forecast | Decides what to do about it |
| Audit & review readiness | Owns it — assembles the file | — |
| Bookkeeping oversight | Reviews the work each month | — |
| Pricing & margin | Supplies the numbers | Owns the decision |
| Financing & lenders | Produces the reporting | Owns the relationship |
| Hiring & capacity | Costs it fully | Decides it |
| Exit or sale | Gets the file ready | Runs the process |
A dash means that half does not own it, not that it never comes up. Not sure which rung you are on? Bookkeeper, controller or CFO starts a step back.
The tax calendar inside the cash forecast
A CFO’s thirteen-week cash forecast treats CRA dates as fixed outflows: payroll remittances, each GST/HST return and payment, T2 instalments, and the T2 balance two or three months after year-end, plus T4 and T5 slips by the end of February. Forecasting them is how a growing business stops being surprised by its tax bill.
Why fractional, rather than a hire
No full-time salary. A controller in British Columbia is a salaried hire with employer CPP and EI, workers’ compensation, vacation and benefits on top of the wage. Most owner-managed businesses in this range need perhaps a quarter of that person, and a fractional engagement is how you buy the quarter.
A CPA, not a job title. A Chartered Professional Accountant does and signs the work, verifiable with CPABC. How to check takes two minutes.
Ready for the people who ask. Lenders, bonding companies, boards and buyers read the same file. Readiness built through the year keeps external engagements at their quoted fee.
Scoped by deliverable, not by hours. The scope names a close by a date and a usable pack. Hourly billing punishes questions.
It scales both ways. Monthly, no minimum term, fee reviewed as things change. There is no long CFO contract to sign, so the engagement can grow or shrink with the business.
The first conversation is free. Thirty minutes on the business, what is produced today and who reads it. If you need bookkeeping rather than a controller, we say so.
How the engagement works
An enquiry first. Tell us about the business, what is produced today and who reads it. Nothing is quoted before that. A written scope and a fixed monthly fee. The scope names the deliverables and the dates they land on. The fee is fixed for the term. The first ninety days are different. There is almost always cleanup, and it is scoped and quoted separately rather than absorbed silently into a monthly fee. You can leave. Monthly, no minimum term, and your records never move anywhere they have to be extracted from.Where we do this
EverStone is a fully virtual, one-CPA firm in British Columbia. Fractional CFO and controller work runs online for businesses in BC, Alberta, Ontario and Manitoba, the Fraser Valley included; only the provincial returns differ.
Pages for the cities we work in most: fractional CFO services in Abbotsford · fractional CFO in Chilliwack · fractional CFO in Mission · fractional CFO in Langley · CFO and controllership services in Surrey · fractional CFO in Maple Ridge · part-time CFO in Vancouver · fractional CFO services for Victoria.
The forms and the dates
The controller tier delivers a checklist close on a set day, a pack with profit and loss, balance sheet, cash and aged receivables, and a monthly rolling forecast. The CFO tier adds job or product margins, financing and lender talks, costed hiring, and exit preparation. Audit-and-review readiness keeps the file ready for a CSRS 4200 compilation or CSRE 2400 review at the quoted cost. Both tiers are fixed monthly fees by deliverable.
Who this is for in the Fraser Valley
Fraser Valley engagements usually start one of three ways: an Abbotsford or Chilliwack trades company passes ten staff; a Langley manufacturer needs lender-grade reporting; or a Surrey or Mission business prepares for sale. The controller half is the monthly close and pack; the CFO half is the decisions they inform.
Sources
The filing dates, instalment thresholds and payment rules behind the numbers on this page come from the following. Check the source before you rely on a date.
- CRA — Corporation payments and balance due
- CRA — Paying corporate tax by instalments
- CRA — Corporation tax rates, federal and provincial
General information, not advice. Have a CPA confirm it for your situation
Fractional CFO work by city
The same engagement, described for the city your business is in.
- British Columbia: Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Mission, Langley, Surrey, Maple Ridge, Fraser Valley, Vancouver, Victoria
- Alberta: Calgary, Edmonton
- Manitoba: Winnipeg
- Ontario: Toronto, Ottawa
Fractional CFO support in Alberta
Alberta businesses file GST with no provincial sales tax and, for corporations, a separate AT1. City pages: Calgary, Edmonton, Airdrie, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, St. Albert, Sherwood Park, Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray.
Where we work
The fee is the same wherever you are. We work with small businesses in Abbotsford, accounting for Chilliwack businesses, owner-managed firms in Langley and operators in Mission, across the Fraser Valley, and with companies in Vancouver.
Who this is for, and who it is not
This fits a business where the numbers have outgrown one person’s head: revenue that moves with decisions, a lender or an investor asking questions, a payroll to make. It does not fit a company whose real need is a bookkeeper. If the books are behind, that comes first, it costs less, and a forecast built on them would only be confident and wrong.
What happens when you get in touch
A fractional engagement lives or dies on the first month, so it is worth knowing exactly how that month runs.
- A free thirty-minute conversation. What you do, what is filed and what is overdue. You leave with a fixed fee in writing and no obligation to take it.
- Access, in the first week. We are authorized with the CRA, so notices and balances get looked up rather than requested from you. If you are switching firms, your file is requested the same week.
- Current, then ahead. Books set up or brought current, anything overdue scheduled oldest year first, and the next twelve months of deadlines set before they arrive.
Send an enquiry, or ask one question first — both go to a CPA, not a queue.
Choosing a CFO for hire: common questions
What does it cost?+
Can we buy just the controller half?+
We already have a bookkeeper. Does this replace them?+
Do you perform the audit as well?+
Is a part-time CFO the same as a fractional CFO?+
Do you take one-off CFO-for-hire projects?+
How is the fractional controller different from the fractional CFO?+
How many hours a month is it?+
How do I choose a fractional CFO service in Canada?+
How do you select a CFO-for-hire service for a growing business in Canada?+
Starting fees
Every fee is fixed in writing before any work begins.
- Controller or CFO supportcontroller from $1,650, CFO from $2,750 a monthThis page
- Monthly bookkeeping, sales tax filing includedfrom $325 a month
- Payroll, remittances, T4s and ROEsincluded in monthly bookkeeping
- Books, payroll and the year-end T2 together$500–$700 a month
- Corporate year-end and T2 returnfixed fee, quoted in writing
- Personal tax return (T1)from $125; self-employed or rental $275–$500
- Catch-up bookkeepingfrom $2,200 per year of records
- One-off advice call with a CPA$225 plus GST