Contract CFO Services: Fractional CFO for Business

Not every company needs a full-time CFO

TL;DR: A contract (fractional) CFO provides senior financial leadership on a part-time basis, typically costing $3,000-12,000/month compared to $200,000-350,000/year for a full-time hire. They're ideal for companies between $2M and $30M in revenue that need strategic finance work -- board reporting, fundraise support, FP&A -- without the full-time overhead.

There's a stage in every growing company's life where the bookkeeper isn't enough but a full-time CFO doesn't make financial sense. You need someone who can build financial models, talk to your board, manage a fundraise, set up proper reporting, and make strategic finance decisions — but you don't need them 40 hours a week.

That's where contract CFOs (also called fractional CFOs) come in. A contract CFO gives you senior financial leadership on a part-time or project basis. They work with your team, your systems, and your board, but at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire.

For companies running on NetSuite, a contract CFO who knows the platform can extract significantly more value from the system than one who doesn't. NetSuite is powerful but complex, and having a CFO who understands what the platform can do shapes how they approach financial strategy.

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What a contract CFO actually does

A contract CFO isn't a glorified bookkeeper. They operate at the strategic level while ensuring the operational finance function works correctly.

Financial planning and analysis. Building budgets, forecasts, and financial models that inform business decisions. This includes cash flow projections, scenario planning, and the kind of analysis that tells you whether you can afford to hire 10 people next quarter or need to wait.

Board and investor reporting. Creating board decks, managing investor relationships, and presenting financial results. If you're fundraising, the contract CFO often leads the financial due diligence process and builds the data room.

Systems and process design. Setting up the financial infrastructure — chart of accounts, reporting dimensions, approval workflows, month-end close procedures. For companies on NetSuite, this means configuring the platform to produce the reports and analysis the business needs.

Cash management. Monitoring cash position, managing working capital, negotiating banking relationships, and ensuring the company doesn't run out of money. This sounds basic, but it's the thing that kills companies.

Team oversight. Managing the accounting team or controller, setting standards for work quality, and building the finance function that the company will eventually need at full scale.

Compliance and audit management. Coordinating with external auditors, managing tax compliance, and ensuring financial statements are accurate and timely.

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When to hire a contract CFO

You're between $2M and $30M in revenue. Below $2M, a good bookkeeper or outsourced accounting service is usually sufficient. Above $30M, you probably need a full-time CFO. The sweet spot for contract CFO services is the mid-range where complexity exceeds what junior finance staff can handle but volume doesn't justify a $250K+ full-time salary.

You're preparing for a fundraise. Investors expect financial sophistication — clean financials, cohort analysis, unit economics, projections that hold together under scrutiny. A contract CFO builds this infrastructure and often manages the process through close.

Your month-end close takes too long. If it takes more than 10 business days to close your books, something is broken in your process. A contract CFO diagnoses the bottlenecks and fixes them.

Your financial reporting doesn't help you make decisions. If your P&L is just a list of revenue and expenses with no departmental breakdown, no project-level margins, no meaningful variance analysis — you're flying blind. A contract CFO builds the reporting framework.

You're implementing or have recently implemented an ERP. New ERP implementations (including NetSuite) need financial leadership to ensure the system is configured to serve the business, not just the accounting team.

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Cost expectations

Contract CFO pricing varies significantly based on engagement scope, the CFO's experience level, and geography.

Hourly engagements: $150-400/hour, typically for project-based work like fundraise support or system implementations.

Monthly retainer: $3,000-12,000/month for ongoing fractional CFO services. The hours per month range from 15-40 depending on the rate and scope. Most mid-market engagements land in the $5,000-8,000/month range.

Comparison to full-time: A full-time CFO for a mid-market company costs $200,000-350,000 in salary plus benefits, equity, and bonus. A contract CFO at $7,000/month costs $84,000/year — a significant savings, especially when you don't need full-time coverage.

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The NetSuite advantage

A contract CFO who knows NetSuite brings a specific advantage: they understand what the system can produce and can design the financial strategy around platform capabilities rather than working around limitations.

Reporting design. NetSuite's financial reporting, saved searches, and SuiteAnalytics workbooks are powerful but require configuration expertise. A NetSuite-savvy CFO knows what's possible and can specify the reports they need rather than accepting whatever was configured during implementation.

Revenue recognition. For SaaS and subscription companies, revenue recognition under ASC 606 is complex. A CFO who understands NetSuite's ARM module can ensure the system handles it correctly rather than maintaining side spreadsheets.

FP&A integration. NetSuite's Planning and Budgeting module connects budgets and forecasts directly to actual results. A CFO who knows the platform can build a connected planning process rather than a disconnected spreadsheet exercise.

Dashboard-driven management. NetSuite dashboards can provide real-time KPIs — cash position, AR aging, revenue by segment, margin by project. A CFO who leverages these dashboards runs a tighter financial operation than one who waits for monthly reports.

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How to evaluate a contract CFO

Industry experience matters. A CFO who has worked with SaaS companies understands SaaS metrics. One who has worked with professional services firms understands utilization and project margins. Industry context accelerates their effectiveness.

Systems knowledge matters. Ask about their experience with your ERP. A contract CFO who needs to learn NetSuite from scratch will spend their first month figuring out the system instead of improving your finance function.

References from similar companies. Talk to companies at your stage and in your industry who have worked with the CFO. Ask what specifically changed in their financial operations.

Clear scope and deliverables. The engagement should have defined outcomes: improved close timeline, board reporting package, budget model, or whatever the priority is. Open-ended "advisory" engagements tend to produce less value than focused ones.

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The bottom line

A contract CFO fills the gap between "we need better financial leadership" and "we can afford a full-time CFO." For companies on NetSuite, finding a contract CFO with platform expertise means they can improve both your financial strategy and your system utilization simultaneously.

The best contract CFO engagements are the ones that eventually make themselves unnecessary — they build the processes, train the team, and set up the systems so the organization can eventually bring that function in-house.

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How BrokenRubik works with contract CFOs

A contract CFO knows what they need from NetSuite. We make it happen.

We've worked alongside fractional CFOs who come into a company, audit the financial reporting, and walk away with a list of 15 things NetSuite should be doing but isn't. Custom financial reports, revenue recognition configuration, dashboard KPIs, automated close processes, planning and budgeting module setup — all of it requires NetSuite expertise that most contract CFOs don't have in-house.

What we typically handle:

• Custom financial reporting. Building the saved searches, SuiteAnalytics workbooks, and financial report layouts that give the CFO the visibility they need — by department, by project, by segment, however the business needs to see the numbers.
• Revenue recognition setup. Configuring NetSuite's Advanced Revenue Management for ASC 606 compliance so the CFO isn't maintaining spreadsheets outside the system.
• Dashboard and KPI design. Real-time dashboards that show cash position, AR aging, burn rate, revenue trends, and whatever metrics the CFO and board care about.
• Month-end close automation. SuiteScript workflows and saved searches that automate reconciliation steps, flag exceptions, and cut days off the close cycle.
• Planning and budgeting. Connecting NetSuite's NSPB module so budgets, forecasts, and actuals live in one system instead of scattered across Excel files.

The engagement usually works like this: the CFO defines the financial strategy and reporting requirements, and we handle the NetSuite configuration and development to deliver it. We speak both languages — finance and NetSuite — so nothing gets lost in translation.

If you're a contract CFO looking for a NetSuite technical partner, or a company that wants to get more from NetSuite alongside your fractional finance team, let's talk.

Frequently Asked Questions

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