Dallas, Texas. One desk, one phone number.

What a fractional chief financial officer does, week by week

The job is a cadence rather than a set of skills. Here is the month as it is actually worked, and what exists at the end of each week.

Week one, the close is read before anything is built

Day one is not strategy. Day one is reading last month and deciding whether it can be trusted. Bank and card balances are tied out, the loan balances are agreed to the lender statements, the unpaid customer list is aged, and anything sitting unanswered is pulled into a short list. If the month does not tie, nothing further gets built on it that week.

Most of what people call a CFO problem shows up here as a bookkeeping problem, and it is cheaper to say so in week one than in month four.

Week two, the numbers are read with you

One working session, forty five minutes, screen shared, your own months on it. Three things get named out loud. What moved, why it moved, and what it means for the next quarter. This is where an owner usually hears their own business described back to them in a way that is uncomfortable for about ten minutes and useful for the rest of the year.

Week three, one decision gets modelled

One question a month, priced. The second truck, the second location, the price increase, the first salaried hire, the equipment that is either a purchase or a lease. Two numbers under it, the cash effect and the tax effect, because those two rarely point the same way.

The month, four working sessions
01 of 04Week one, close reviewBalances tied, aged receivables, the open list
02 of 04your hourWeek two, the readForty five minutes, your months on a shared screen
03 of 04Week three, the decisionOne question, the cash effect and the tax effect
04 of 04Week four, the roll forwardThirteen week view rolled, next month's questions set
A month of a live engagement as it is scheduled. Week two is marked because it is the only session an owner is asked to attend.
Start the Tax CFO month

Week four, the view rolls forward

The thirteen week cash view is rolled, the assumptions that turned out wrong are corrected rather than quietly dropped, and next month's question is set while this month is fresh. That correction step is the difference between a forecast and a spreadsheet nobody trusts by March.

What your bank will ask you for

Lenders and SBA underwriters ask in a predictable order, and the delay is almost never the underwriter. It is that three of these do not exist yet.

The document index from a funded file
01 of 06Two or three years of business returnsSigned, as filed, with all schedules
02 of 06the blockerInterim statements through last closed monthProfit and loss and balance sheet, from closed books
03 of 06Debt scheduleEvery note, the rate, the term, the monthly payment, the balance
04 of 06Accounts receivable and payable agingAs of the same date as the interim statements
05 of 06Personal returns and a personal financial statementFor every guarantor above the ownership threshold
06 of 06A cash projectionUsually twelve months, sometimes thirteen weeks
The index a funded file is assembled against. The interim statements are marked because they are the item that sends most files back.

If the interim statements cannot be produced from closed books, the file stalls there. That is the same wall the monthly close removes.

Book a Tax CFO meeting

What people read next

Ask for a month plan built on your own close calendar

Owners say it plainly at the end of a first call. They wanted somebody in the room for one decision, and what they actually wanted was a month that already had the reading, the decision and the filing built into it.

The month above gets rebuilt against your own dates, not ours. The whole thing happens on a screen you already open, so none of it depends on where you are.

You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.

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