The Fractional CFO Value Proposition
Fractional CFOs are phenomenal for strategic financial leadership. They bring experience negotiating with investors, structuring deals, managing board reporting, and building financial models. For businesses between $5M and $50M in revenue, a good fractional CFO is often the difference between surviving and scaling.
But they have limitations:
- Limited hours: Most fractional CFOs work 10–20 hours per month. That's one or two days of attention spread across four weeks.
- High cost: At $3K–$10K per month, it's a significant line item for a growing business.
- Not real-time: They work on reports from last week or last month. By the time they spot a problem, you've already lived with it for weeks.
- Single point of access: Only the people in the meeting get the insights. Everyone else waits for the deck.
Where CentSight Fills the Gap
CentSight doesn't replace the strategic value of a fractional CFO. It replaces the operational overhead — the hours spent pulling reports, building spreadsheets, reconciling accounts, and answering routine questions.
With CentSight handling the data layer, a fractional CFO can focus entirely on strategy. They spend less time in spreadsheets and more time on the work that actually requires human judgment: investor conversations, growth planning, and organizational design.
Better Together
The most effective financial setup for a $1M–$50M business isn't CentSight or a fractional CFO. It's both. CentSight provides the real-time intelligence layer. The fractional CFO provides the strategic context. Together, they give you the financial visibility of a Fortune 500 company at a fraction of the cost.