Contract CFO or fractional controller
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.
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 — plus the pricing, capital and hiring decisions those figures inform, which is the CFO half. Scoped by deliverable, at a fixed monthly fee.
Three levels, and most businesses climb them in order
Every figure below is a real starting point, not a teaser. Your fixed fee is quoted in writing after a free consult, before any work begins, and it is reviewed as the business changes rather than 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 and no locked-in contract. The first ninety days usually include cleanup, and that is scoped and quoted separately rather than absorbed silently into a monthly fee.
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 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 $1,500/mo | Fractional CFO from $2,500/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. It does not mean it never comes up — a CFO reads the audit file, they just do not assemble it. Not sure which rung you are on at all? Bookkeeper, controller or CFO starts one step further back.
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. The work is done and signed by a Chartered Professional Accountant, and the standing is verifiable with CPABC independently of anything this site says. How to check takes two minutes.
Ready for the people who ask. Lenders, bonding companies, boards and buyers all read the same file, and it is either assembled or it is not. Readiness built through the year is what keeps an external engagement at the fee it was quoted.
Scoped by deliverable, not by hours. What you want is a close finished by a date and a pack you can use, so that is what the scope names. Hourly billing on a recurring finance function punishes you for asking questions, which is the opposite of the point.
It scales both ways. Monthly, no minimum term, and the fee is reviewed as the business changes. Growth adds deliverables; a quiet year removes them.
The first conversation is free. Thirty minutes to understand the business, what is produced today and who reads it. Nothing is quoted before that, and if the honest answer is that you need bookkeeping rather than a controller, we say so.
How the engagement works
A free consult first. Thirty minutes to understand 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 sole practitioner CPA firm working from one office at 32615 South Fraser Way in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Fractional CFO or fractional controller work runs remotely for businesses across Canada, and in person for the Fraser Valley when you would rather meet. The rules are federal with a provincial layer, so the work is not tied to a postcode — what changes by province is which return goes where.
Pages for the cities we work in most: Abbotsford · Chilliwack · Mission · Langley · Surrey · Maple Ridge · Vancouver · Calgary · Edmonton · Toronto · Ottawa · Winnipeg.
Not in one of those? The engagement is identical. How a remote CPA engagement works covers authorisation, secure document exchange and e-signature.
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?+
How many hours a month is it?+
The forms and the dates
The controller tier delivers a month-end close to a checklist on a stated day, a reporting pack with profit and loss, balance sheet, cash and aged receivables, and a rolling forecast refreshed each month; the CFO tier adds pricing and margin by job or product, the financing and lender conversations, capacity and hiring costed before commitment, and preparation for an exit or sale. The audit-and-review readiness deliverable keeps the file in the shape a CSRS 4200 compilation or a CSRE 2400 review will ask for at year-end, so that engagement costs what was quoted. Both tiers are scoped by deliverable at a fixed monthly fee reviewed as the business changes.
Who this is for in the Fraser Valley
Fractional engagements in the Fraser Valley are usually the point where an Abbotsford or Chilliwack trades company passes ten staff and the owner stops being able to hold the numbers in their head, a Langley manufacturer needs lender-grade reporting for a facility, or a Surrey or Mission business is being prepared for sale. The controller half is the same close and pack every month; the CFO half is the decisions those numbers inform.
Talk to a CPA about this
One Chartered Professional Accountant, start to finish. Fixed fees, quoted in writing before any work begins, and no obligation from a first conversation.
“Sunny and his team have been completing my bookkeeping, taxes and financials for the last 2 years and they have been amazing. Thank you!”