Virtual CFO services. Built on books we keep.

What is a virtual CFO?

A virtual CFO is a senior finance lead who works for your business part time and remotely, for a monthly fee instead of a salary. Also called a fractional or outsourced CFO, they forecast cash, find which customers and jobs make money, set prices and budgets, and get the numbers ready for a lender or buyer. Virtual CFO services are that work, bought by the month.

In short

• What it costs: Most owner-led businesses pay $2,000 to $8,000 a month. Walden is $7,000–$10,000/month, with the books included.
• Against a hire: A full-time CFO costs about $325,000 a year with taxes and benefits, and takes four to eight months to hire.
• Who it’s for: Owner-led companies doing roughly $1M to $20M that have outgrown a bookkeeper but can’t keep a full-time CFO busy.
• How it runs: In shared systems, with a monthly working session on video. No office, no travel billed.

A month with a virtual CFO

The five-day close starts once the books are clean.

• Every week: 13-week cash forecast updated against what actually cleared the bank
• Business day 5: Books closed, statements and a one-page KPI report in your inbox
• Week 2: P&L and margin by job or customer, with written notes on what changed
• Week 3: One working session on video about the decisions in front of you
• Quarter end: Budget against actual, and the next quarter reforecast
• Any day: Questions answered the same business day

What “virtual” means day to day.

Virtual means the work runs in shared systems instead of a shared office. We work inside your accounting file, your bank feeds, and the tools your team already uses. The forecast and the KPI report sit in a shared folder you can open any time, so you aren’t waiting for a meeting to see the numbers.

What you give up is a CFO in your conference room every week. If that matters to you, hire a firm that sends one. What you get is a CFO who isn’t limited to firms within driving distance and doesn’t bill for the drive.

• Your file, your logins. We’re added as a user on your accounting file, not handed your password, so you control the access and can remove it in one click.
• One working session a month. On video, about the decisions in front of you: a hire, a price change, a loan, a big job. You leave with the two or three moves that matter this month.
• Answers between sessions. Questions get a reply the same business day. A quick “can we afford this?” shouldn’t wait three weeks for the next call.
• In person when it helps. We’re based in Canton, Georgia, north of Atlanta, and meet clients in the metro in person when the work calls for it.
• A dashboard built for your business. Most clients get a KPI dashboard we build for them with Claude Code, an AI coding tool, so it tracks the numbers that run your business. Simpler setups use Fathom, a reporting app that reads your accounting file.
• Software picked for you, not for us. No software company pays us to recommend it. When we suggest a tool, it’s because it fits how you work.

The worry with a virtual CFO: is anyone doing the work?

It’s a fair question. You can’t see a virtual CFO at a desk, so you can’t tell whether they’re working on your business, busy with someone else’s, or connected to what you’re building. The bigger the firm, the harder it gets. Some put three or four people on your account, and you end up working out who to send each question to. At that point you’re managing hires again.

We give you one point of contact. The person on your first call is the person who knows your numbers, works with your team, and answers your questions. You see the work as it happens, in a forecast updated every week and a report on a fixed date, not only in meetings. We haven’t lost a client since 2024.

What a $7,000 virtual CFO looked like

An ecommerce company that sells subscriptions came to us paying another virtual CFO $7,000 a month. Most of what it got was adjusting entries. The CFO didn’t work with the rest of the team, waited to be asked instead of raising problems, and charged extra for any meeting beyond the plan. Nobody was guiding strategy.

We looked past the accounting. Revenue was slipping, and the fix looked like more marketing. We built a dashboard that split new subscribers from cancellations. New subscribers were strong. Churn was the problem. The company moved effort and money from finding new customers to keeping the ones it had.

When it’s time for a virtual CFO.

Usually it isn’t a crisis. Revenue grew, the business got more complicated, and the person keeping the books was never hired to tell you what the numbers mean. Decisions that used to be gut calls now cost real money if they’re wrong.

Below about $1M in revenue, the honest answer is usually not yet. Start with clean books and a reliable close. A CFO has little to work with until those exist.

• A good fit: Owner-led, roughly $1M to $20M in revenue
• A good fit: Revenue is up and profit isn’t
• A good fit: You can’t say which customers, jobs, or products make money
• A good fit: Cash is tight in months that should be good
• A good fit: A bank, investor, or buyer wants numbers you can’t produce yet
• A good fit: You’re weighing a hire, a location, or a loan and want to see it in the numbers first
• Not a fit: Under about $1M in revenue. Clean books come first.
• Not a fit: Venture-backed startups planning a round. A startup-focused firm fits better.
• Not a fit: You mainly need tax planning or an audit. That’s your CPA.
• Not a fit: You want a CFO on site every week.

Six things the retainer covers.

Each one is part of the flat fee, and each one exists to change a decision. If a deliverable doesn’t change a decision, it’s a report, not CFO work.

• A 13-week cash forecast, updated weekly. Week by week, what comes in and what goes out, checked against what actually cleared the bank. You see the tight week before it arrives and decide on the loan, the hire, or the draw ahead of time.
• The close and a one-page KPI report. Books closed on a fixed date with every balance sheet account tied out. Then the five to eight numbers that move profit in your business, read with you each month.
• Margin by job, customer, and product. Which work pays, which work costs you money, and what to reprice. This is usually where the first real money turns up.
• Pricing and a monthly cost review. Price changes tested against margin before they go out, and every cost line read once a month, so a vendor increase is caught the month it starts.
• Budget and scenarios before big decisions. What a new hire, a second location, a price change, or a large contract does to profit and cash, modeled before you commit.
• The books underneath. Bookkeeping, AR, AP, and payroll entries, run by us. The CFO work reads books we keep, so nobody is guessing whether the numbers are right.

An $8 million distributor losing money, at 38% gross margin six months later.

A railroad equipment distributor doing about $8 million a year was losing money. Its CRM, its field service software, and its books were separate systems, and data moved between them by hand. Prices hadn’t changed since 2022.

We cleaned up 24 months of books in about 90 days and connected the three systems. Then we built margin by product and matched every shipping invoice to the order it shipped with. Customers were paying 1% to 2% of the order for shipping that cost the company 5% to 7.5%.

After shipping fees and prices went up, gross margin went from 12% to 38% in about six months, while the close rate and revenue per customer held. A monthly review of every cost line cut $1.1 million a year of spending that didn’t drive revenue.

At a content restoration franchise, collections fell from 74 days to 22, which put $455,890 of working capital back in the business.

• 12% → 38%: gross margin, in about six months.
• $1.1M: a year of spending cut that didn’t drive revenue.
• $232K → $115K: monthly fixed costs.
• $1.9M → $303K: monthly sales needed to break even: $232K ÷ 12%, then $115K ÷ 38%.

$7,000–$10,000/month, flat.

One fee covers the CFO work, the monthly close, and the bookkeeping under it. Where you land in the range depends on how much of your accounting and finance work we take on: how many entities and locations, how many systems feed the books, and whether you carry inventory or job costing.

It isn’t priced by the hour. Every business needs a different number of hours, so we price the work we deliver instead. A busy month doesn’t change the bill, so you never hesitate to send the question. Cleanup of past months is quoted once, before it starts.

Here is what the top of the range looks like. One client pays $10,000 a month for seven entities and the full stack: CFO, controller, AR, AP, and banking. That is 28 accounts reconciled every month (10 bank, 5 investment, and 13 credit cards). A single company with 3 bank accounts and 5 cards, and no AP work, is 8 accounts a month and pays well below that.

Not ready for CFO work? Walden Control is $3,500–$7,500/month: the close, the controls, a monthly cash forecast, and the bookkeeping. Moving up later adds the CFO work on top. Nothing gets redone.

• Walden Advisory, low end: $84,000 a year
• Walden Advisory, high end: $120,000 a year
• Full-time CFO: about $325,000 a year in salary, payroll taxes, and benefits

What other virtual CFO firms publish.

Most firms don’t list a price. These do. Figures are as each firm states them on its own site, checked November 2026.

Read the starting prices for what they buy. Pilot’s starts with one call a month, and Michigan CFO’s with one day. Where a firm says what a typical client pays, it lands at $5,000 to about $7,150 a month. Ask any firm what its figure covers and what it doesn’t.

• Bookkeeper360 (Startups to established businesses): From $1,600/mo. CFO work only. Bookkeeping is separate, from $400 a month.
• Pilot (Startups and growing businesses): From $1,750/mo. Billed annually, with one CFO call a month at that price. Bookkeeping is sold separately.
• Michigan CFO Associates ($1M to $20M, many in manufacturing): $2,100–$11,500/mo. Priced by CFO time, from one day a month to twice a week. Weekly, at $6,300, is its most common level. Bookkeeping not listed.
• Bennett Financials (Service businesses, $2M to $20M): $5,000/mo. One package: bookkeeping, tax returns, and CFO work.
• Anders CPA + Advisors ($1M to $75M, typically $5M to $15M): $1,650/week. An average for a $5M service company, about $7,150 a month. Bookkeeping and an onboarding fee are extra.
• Walden (Owner-led, $1M to $20M): $7,000–$10,000/mo. CFO work, the monthly close, and the bookkeeping.

Virtual CFO, controller, bookkeeper, or full-time CFO?

Four roles, often confused. Each one owns a different question.

Most businesses under $20 million need some of all four and can’t justify hiring any of them full time. That’s the case for buying them as one retainer.

• Bookkeeper: owns recording what happened: bills, invoices, payroll entries, bank feeds. About $58,000 a year in salary, or $1,000–$4,000/month outsourced. Fits when: volume is low and someone else reads the numbers.
• Controller: owns whether the numbers are right: the close, reconciliations, controls. About $203,000 a year loaded, or $3,500–$7,500/month outsourced. Fits when: statements come late or change after you’ve seen them.
• Virtual CFO: owns what the numbers mean: cash forecast, margin, pricing, capital. $2,000 to $8,000 a month across the market. Fits when: the books are right and the decisions are getting bigger.
• Full-time CFO: owns the same as a virtual CFO, every day, plus managing a finance team. About $325,000 a year loaded, four to eight months to hire. Fits when: the work fills forty hours a week, every week.

Six questions to ask any virtual CFO.

Ask us too. A firm that can’t answer these in plain words on the first call won’t get clearer once you’re paying.

• Who keeps the books your forecast reads? If the answer is “your bookkeeper,” you’re paying a CFO to work from numbers nobody checks. Ask who fixes them when they’re wrong.
• What is the monthly price, in writing, and what moves it? Hourly billing and “out of scope” fees are how a $10,000 month becomes a $19,000 month. Get the busy-month number too.
• Who does the work? Ask whether the person on the sales call is the person who builds your forecast and works with your team, or whether the work is split across people you haven’t met.
• What lands in my inbox, and on what date? A real engagement runs on a calendar: the close date, the forecast update, the review. “We’ll meet as needed” is not a deliverable.
• Does a software company pay you to recommend it? Software companies run partner programs that pay accounting firms for referrals. Ask. A recommendation that earns the firm a fee may not be the best fit for you. No vendor pays us.
• How do I leave? Ask for the notice period, any annual commitment, and confirmation that the files, models, and logins stay yours.

How it starts.

• A free QuickBooks grade, or a 15-minute call. Add us as a user on your QuickBooks Online file and we grade it A to F in five areas, then name the three fixes worth making first. Not on QuickBooks Online? Book the call.
• Clean books first, every time. Every file we’ve taken on has needed some cleanup, whether the owner knew it or not. It’s usually on the balance sheet, which most owners don’t review until a big tax bill arrives or the numbers stop looking right. Cleanup is quoted once. Ours have taken no longer than 90 days so far, including one that covered 24 months.
• The forecast, then the margin work. Month one: books caught up and the first 13-week forecast. Months two and three: margin by job and customer, and the first decision the numbers make obvious.

Before you book anything

• Best virtual CFO services, compared — Firms side by side on price, who they serve, and who keeps the books.
• How Walden Advisory works — The service in full: the work, the steps, and the guarantee.
• CFO services for small business — What’s included, what it costs, and the first 90 days.
• Sample monthly CFO report — The report a client gets each month, on a fictional company.
• Is a CFO worth it? Quiz — Eight questions. Bookkeeper, controller, or CFO, and what to fix first.
• Fractional CFO for SaaS — Deferred revenue in QuickBooks, MRR, churn, CAC payback, and the board deck.

Frequently asked questions