Most growing businesses reach a point where their finances become more complex than a bookkeeper can handle, but the business isn't yet at a scale where hiring a full-time CFO makes financial sense. A full-time CFO in the UK costs anywhere from £120,000 to £200,000 a year once you factor in salary, national insurance, pension, and benefits. For a business turning over £1–5 million, that's a significant slice of the operating budget for a single hire.
This is the gap that fractional CFO services are designed to fill. A fractional CFO provides the same calibre of financial leadership — strategic thinking, financial modelling, cash flow management, board-level reporting, investor relations — but on a part-time or retained basis. You get the expertise without the full-time overhead.
What a fractional CFO actually does
The title "CFO" means different things in different organisations, so it's worth being specific about what the role involves in practice, particularly for owner-managed businesses and scale-ups.
At its core, a fractional CFO is responsible for the financial health and direction of the business — not just recording what happened, but shaping what happens next. That includes:
- Building and maintaining financial models that reflect how the business actually works
- Cash flow forecasting — knowing not just what's in the bank today but what will be in three, six, and twelve months
- Setting and monitoring key financial metrics and KPIs
- Preparing board and investor reporting packs
- Advising on pricing, margin, and profitability at a product or service level
- Leading on fundraising, banking relationships, and due diligence processes
- Identifying risks in the financial structure before they become problems
- Working alongside the management team on strategic decisions with financial implications
Notice what isn't on that list: bookkeeping, payroll, VAT returns, year-end accounts. Those are operational finance tasks — important, but not strategic. A fractional CFO works above that layer, interpreting the numbers rather than producing them, and turning financial data into decisions.
How a fractional CFO differs from your accountant
This is the question I get asked most often, and it's a fair one. The short answer is that an accountant — even a proactive, advisory-focused one — is primarily concerned with compliance and historical accuracy. A fractional CFO is primarily concerned with the future and with making the business more financially resilient and valuable.
A good accountant will make sure your year-end accounts are correct, your tax is optimised, and you're meeting your legal obligations. A fractional CFO will help you understand whether your business model is fundamentally sound, whether you're pricing correctly for the margin you need, and whether you have the cash runway to execute your growth plans.
An accountant tells you what happened. A CFO helps you decide what to do next. The best businesses have both — and the roles complement each other rather than overlap.
In practice, a fractional CFO and your accountant should work closely together. The accountant produces the financial statements; the CFO uses them as a starting point for analysis and planning. If those two functions are properly joined up, the business gets a genuinely complete financial picture — accurate historical data and a clear view of where things are heading.
Who actually needs a fractional CFO
Not every business needs one, and it's worth being honest about that. If you're a sole trader or a small limited company with straightforward finances, a good accountant on a monthly retainer will cover most of what you need. A fractional CFO becomes relevant when the financial complexity of the business starts to outpace what compliance-focused support can address.
Some specific situations where a fractional CFO adds clear value:
- You're raising investment or approaching a bank for significant debt finance, and need investor-ready financial models and projections
- You're planning an acquisition, a merger, or a significant expansion — transactions where financial due diligence and deal structuring matter
- Your business is growing quickly and cash flow is becoming harder to predict and manage — revenue is up but the bank balance doesn't reflect it
- You're preparing to exit — whether a sale, management buyout, or passing the business on — and want to maximise value and structure it correctly
- You make significant decisions (hiring, pricing, entering new markets) largely on instinct, and you'd like better financial grounding for those calls
- You have investors or a board who expect professional financial reporting and you don't currently have the internal resource to produce it
Turnover isn't the only indicator — a £2 million business with complex contracts, multiple revenue streams, or ambitious growth plans often has more need for CFO-level thinking than a £10 million business with a simple, stable model. The trigger is complexity and ambition, not size alone.
What the fractional model looks like in practice
Fractional CFO engagements vary quite a bit, but most work on a retainer model — typically one to three days per month, paid as a fixed monthly fee. Some engagements are project-based, brought in specifically for a fundraise or an exit process, then stepping back once that's complete. Others are ongoing strategic relationships that evolve as the business grows.
At Insights, our fractional CFO work tends to sit at the intersection of strategic advice and financial clarity. We build the models, run the forecasts, and sit alongside the business owner when the big decisions come up — whether that's how to structure a new product line, what to do when a large customer is late paying, or how to think about the business's value if the owner wants to step back in three years.
The engagement is deliberately flexible. Some months require more involvement — a board meeting, a bank presentation, a cash flow crisis to work through. Other months it's lighter. That's one of the advantages of the fractional model: you're not paying for a full-time executive to be in the building when there isn't full-time CFO work to do.
A practical way to think about it
If you're running a growing business and you frequently find yourself making significant financial decisions without the data or analysis to properly inform them — or if you've reached a point where the financial complexity of the business has quietly overtaken your visibility into it — that's a good sign you'd benefit from CFO-level input.
It doesn't need to be a large or expensive commitment to start with. Often the most useful first step is a conversation about where the business is now and where the gaps in financial visibility actually are. From there, it's usually clear whether what's needed is better accounting, more strategic financial input, or both.
If any of this resonates, feel free to get in touch. We're happy to have a straightforward conversation about whether a fractional CFO makes sense for your situation — no obligation, no sales pressure.
