Insight
When do you need a CFO?
The signals that your business is ready for financial leadership, and why a fractional CFO is often the first step.
There is no revenue threshold that decides when you need a CFO. The moment is set by the decisions on your plate, and by how confident you feel about the numbers behind them.
Seven signals
- You do not know exactly how many months of cash you have left.
- You know your revenue, but not your margin per client, product or project.
- Your reporting arrives too late to act on.
- You are preparing a funding round without a solid model.
- Your bank or investor asks for numbers you have to rebuild every time.
- You hire on gut feel instead of on a plan.
- Your accountant delivers correct numbers, but nobody turns them into choices.
Recognise three or more? Then it is time for financial leadership, not for another report.
Full-time, part-time or project based
A full-time CFO in Belgium quickly costs more than 150,000 euro a year, employer charges included. For most start-ups, scale-ups and SMEs that is too early, and often unnecessary: the work comes in peaks.
- Fractional CFO: a fixed rhythm, one to a few days a month, for steering and follow-up.
- Project based: one defined question such as a funding round or a business case.
- Full-time: makes sense once you lead a finance team and make complex calls daily.
What you get in the first months
In practice your cash flow forecast is in place after two to three months, you know your margins, and you have monthly reporting you actually decide on. From there it is steering instead of catching up.
Not sure whether it is too early? That is exactly the question a 30-minute intro call answers.