Bookkeeper, accountant, or fractional CFO
Three different jobs, hired in an order, and the signal for each.
A bookkeeper records what happened. An accountant files on it and advises on tax. A CFO decides what happens next. Almost every company needs the first two, in that order. The third earns its place when decisions are waiting on numbers rather than the other way round.
Work it out in a minute
Months behind, when the month closes, hours a week and revenue in. Out: what is riding on the books, and whether it is a rhythm problem or a catch-up.
What we take on
The bookkeeper records
Transactions coded, accounts reconciled, receivables and payables current, and a month that closes on a set day. Everything else in finance is built on this and reads badly without it.
The accountant files and advises
Returns, elections, entity questions, the treatment of an unusual transaction, and what a decision does to your tax position. A CPA signs work nobody else can sign.
The CFO decides forward
Pricing, margin by line, hiring capacity, cash runway, what a lender or an investor will see. Backward-looking numbers are the input, and the job is the decision on top of them.
The order almost never changes
Books first, because the other two read them. Accountant next, because a return is due whether or not the books are ready. CFO last, and only when there is a decision waiting on the answer.
One person rarely does all three well
They are different skills at different rates. A CFO reconciling a bank account is expensive, and a bookkeeper asked to model a price change is being asked for something outside the job.
Fractional means the seat, not the hours
A finance lead a few days a month is a normal shape for a company under a certain size. What matters is that the seat is filled and the decisions have an owner.
How to tell which one you are short of
The tell for a bookkeeper is that nobody can answer a simple question quickly. What did we bill last month, who owes us, what did we spend on that project. If the answer takes a day and a spreadsheet, the recording layer is the gap.
The tell for an accountant is a deadline or a transaction you are guessing at. A new state, a first employee, an equity grant, a large asset, a change of entity. Each of those has a right answer and a wrong one, and only one of them is cheap.
The tell for a CFO is different in kind. The numbers arrive, they are correct, and nobody turns them into a decision. Pricing has not moved in two years, nobody knows which line makes money, and hiring is decided on a feeling about cash.
Hiring the third before the first two is the common and expensive order. A finance lead handed unreconciled books spends the first two months doing bookkeeping, at a rate nobody would have agreed to for bookkeeping.
Cost follows the same ladder, and so does the value of an hour. An hour of recording produces a record. An hour of filing produces a position. An hour of deciding moves a price, a hire or a payment term, and that hour compounds.
Most companies under a few million in revenue need the first two properly filled and the third borrowed occasionally. That is not a small ambition, it is the shape that holds up while the company is still changing quickly.
Questions we get
Can our accountant just do the bookkeeping too?
Many will, and it is usually the most expensive way to buy it. Their time is priced for the work only they can do, and recording is not that work.
The arrangement that tends to hold is books kept current weekly by whoever keeps books, and the CPA filing from them.
When does a fractional CFO actually pay for itself?
When a decision is waiting on the numbers. A price change, a lending conversation, a first outside investor, a line of business you suspect is unprofitable, a hiring plan you cannot fund from feel.
If nothing is waiting, the seat can wait too.
We have a bookkeeper and the numbers still arrive late. What is wrong?
Usually the close has no fixed day. Recording without a close produces a ledger that is always nearly finished, which is a different thing from a month that is shut.
Name the business day the month closes, list what has to be true before it, and the lateness resolves itself.
Do we need a CPA specifically?
For anything filed, attested or signed, yes. For advice on structure and tax position, yes. For recording and closing the month, no, and paying CPA rates for it is a common leak.
Keep the licensed work with the licensed person and the routine work with whoever does it every week.
What does this practice do, of the three?
The first, and the operating layer around it. Books current weekly, a close on a set business day, receivables, payables, a cash view and monthly statements your CPA can file from.
We do not file returns and we do not give tax advice. That stays with your CPA, and clean books usually lower what they charge for it.
Can one person cover bookkeeper and CFO in a small company?
It happens, and it works while the company is small enough that the recording is an hour a week. It stops working at the point where the recording is a job, because the deciding is what gets dropped first.
The moment to split is when the close starts slipping.
More in the guides and every answer in one place.
Shaheer leads the work, with engineers, writers, filers and analysts behind him. C-suite operations for a San Francisco AI company, Six Sigma on the process side, Anthropic certified on the Model Context Protocol, ten years across eight industries. See what we have built