The CFO for Small BusinessDo small businesses need a CFO?

What the work is

Strip away the title and a CFO does three things. They read a closed month and say what it means. They plan cash and taxes for what's coming. And they help the owner make a decision before the year ends, when it can still change something.

None of that needs a corner office. It needs a person who looks at the numbers regularly and tells the owner, in plain words, what they see. A company of four needs that as much as a company of four hundred, and perhaps more, because there's less room for a surprise and fewer people to catch one.

Why it's personal at small scale

In a big company, the person making the money decisions and the company's money are separate. In yours, they aren't. You decide what to pay yourself. You carry the profit on your own return. You sign the loan. You are the guarantor and the employee and the owner all at once.

That's why a CFO for a small business looks at two sides of one picture. The company's money and the owner's money are tied together, and a plan for one that ignores the other will be wrong.

Ask whether it fits

The signs it would help

You don't need all of these. Any one is enough to be worth a conversation.

The April number surprises you. You find out what you owe when the return is done, and not before. Owner pay is a guess, and you take money out when the account looks full. A landlord, a lender or a buyer asks for statements, and you're not sure the books would stand up. You're about to make a decision, such as a hire, a purchase or a price change, and you'd like someone else to look at the numbers first. Or you simply have a quiet feeling that you're running on fog.

When the answer is not yet

Some businesses aren't ready for this work, and we'll say so. If you have a side business with a few transactions a month, good records and a once-a-year return may be all you need for now. If your books aren't kept at all, bookkeeping comes first. First money steps for a very small business lists what to do on your own, and the free call will tell you plainly if you don't need us yet.

What a Tax CFO adds

Steven Palmieri works as a Tax CFO for owner-run businesses. Because one team does the books, the return and the planning, nobody has to relearn your business each time. The monthly read feeds the planning, and the planning feeds the return, so you aren't explaining your business to three different professionals. A Tax CFO for a small business explains how that works.

A word on size and cost

Owners sometimes assume a CFO is priced for companies far bigger than theirs. The work is sized to the business, and the fee is set before anything starts and put in writing. What a one-person shop needs is a lighter month than what a company of thirty needs, and the arrangement should reflect that. If it doesn't fit your size, we'll tell you.

What it looks like in practice

Once a month, your books are closed and checked. We go through them with you for a short while. We talk about what happened, what's coming and whether any decision should be made now. Then a few times a year, we look further ahead at your pay, your estimates and anything big on the horizon. Between those, you ask questions as they come up.

You don't give up control. The decisions stay yours, and so does the bank. We read, check and advise. What you gain is a second pair of eyes that knows your numbers.

Both sides. This page's subject touches your own money and the company's at once, since the question of whether you can afford a CFO is also a question of how you pay yourself. Your pay and your personal return shows how the two are set together.

See the signs again

Talk about my size