Fractional CFO for marketing and creative agencies
The layer that sees ahead, sitting on top of the layer that records
- Forecasting, owner pay, the hiring gate
- Built on books we close ourselves
Four layers own your numbers. Most agencies only have two.
The short version
- Your CPA files last year. Your bookkeeper records last month. Nothing owns next quarter.
- Forecasts built on your real levers: churn, new customers, pricing and retention, instead of last year plus 15%.
- The hiring gate, owner pay, and the tax cash flow behind both.
- Built on books we closed ourselves, so the forecast and the ledger agree.
Know you need the Sees ahead layer?
Bring last month's P&L and we'll show you what a real forecast would say.
Neither of those roles is going to tell you whether you can afford the hire you're thinking about in March.
The four layers
This is how we carve up financial work. The horizon each layer looks at is the thing that separates them, and it runs from next quarter at the top to last year at the bottom.
Ahead
Behind
We cover these three
Your CPA keeps this
Most agencies only have two of the four: someone records last month and someone files last year. Nothing owns next quarter. There's a longer version of this on the comparison page.
The benchmarks your forecast gets built against
Operating profit of 15% to 20% at $600K to $1.2M, rising to 18% to 25% past $1.2M. People cost of 25% to 35%, falling as you scale. Owner compensation of $110K to $170K in that middle band. We publish the full tables in the playbook because the numbers are useless to you until someone applies them to your books.
Forecasts built on your real levers
A forecast that grows revenue 15% a year because last year grew 15% is arithmetic wearing a forecast's clothes. We connect churn, new customers, pricing and retention to the financials, so you can see which lever moves the most before you spend money or hire.
What that looks like
For one agency we built the year's forecast from the bottom up instead of from a growth rate. Recurring revenue split by service model, each model split into small and large accounts.
Project revenue got forecast separately and squeezed into a March-to-October window, because a high-value project doesn't close in December.
Then we modelled losing the largest account outright, since a new decision maker there was shopping for cheaper.
What happened
When Q1 closed, actuals, forecast and the prior year came in nearly identical. The full story is here.
Scenarios, not a single number
For another agency we ran three: hold everything flat and roll Q1 forward, grow at the historical 15% to 20% with no cost changes, or blend modest growth with real cost cuts.
Only the third reached the margin they were after, so that's the one they ran. See that engagement.
Hiring and spend with confidence
We model the next hire, incentive plans and expense changes against cash and margin, so you can grow without feeling like you're cutting it close every month.
Including the unglamorous work
- Modelling a maternity leave payroll structure at a reduced rate
- Benchmarking a new account manager role across pay bands before the job gets posted
- Setting the hiring gate thresholds and the cash-on-hand target that clears first
Want this run on your numbers?
We'll model your next hire against your actual cash on the call.
Owner pay gets an actual answer
Most owners are underpaid or pulling money out reactively. We benchmark your compensation against your revenue band, show what the gap costs you, and forecast the W-2 and distribution split so the tax cash flow doesn't surprise you.
On Growth and Scale it's a standing quarterly deliverable, so it's not a conversation you have to remember to start.
What you get, by tier
The advisory depth is the tier. Bookkeeping is identical across all three.
Advisory cadence
- Starter, $500 to $800 a month. Semi-annual financial health call, and a close you can plan around.
- Growth, $1,500 a month. Quarterly calls plus monthly Looms, custom dashboard, annual budget, quarterly forecasts including tax cash flow.
- Scale, $2,500 a month. Monthly calls, weekly financial report, funnel-to-financial forecast, monthly forecasts.
Every Growth and Scale engagement opens with the Agency Financial Audit as its first month. Full detail on pricing.
Logan works every account
Logan works every account. We oversee $75M in annual cash flow across agency clients, and the whole firm is Emma and Logan, with 10+ years of Fortune 500 consulting behind it.
It feels like such a tailored approach to every decision we're making.
Owner, B2B video agency
Questions
The ones people actually ask on the first call
What are the benefits of a fractional CFO for a creative agency?
A forecast built on your real levers instead of last year plus a growth rate, a straight answer on whether you can afford the next hire, owner pay benchmarked against your revenue band, and tax cash flow forecast so the money is set aside. Because we also close the books, the forecast and the ledger agree.
How is this different from hiring a part-time CFO?
A part-time CFO usually arrives without the books and needs someone else to produce them. We own the Records, Closes and Sees ahead layers together, so the forecast is built on numbers we closed ourselves rather than on a file someone hands over.
What revenue range does this fit?
The tiers run from under $500K through $1.5M to $5M and up. In practice most agencies we have onboarded recently sit between $1M and $3M in revenue, and very few are under seven figures.
How often will we talk?
Semi-annually on Starter, quarterly on Growth, monthly on Scale. Between live calls you get a Loom walkthrough of the numbers you can watch when it suits you. Email support is unlimited on every tier.
Can you forecast if my revenue is lumpy and project-based?
Yes, and lumpy revenue is usually the reason to do it. For one agency we pulled project work out of the recurring forecast entirely and modelled it inside a March-to-October window, because that is when their project work closes.
Do you give tax advice as part of the CFO work?
No. Tax preparation, filing, planning and advising are excluded from every agreement. We do forecast tax cash flow on the Growth tier so the money is set aside, and we hand your CPA clean books to work from.
Next step
Thirty minutes, and you'll know where you stand
Bring last month's P&L. We'll tell you what it's actually saying about your margin, your owner pay and your next hire. If we're not the right people to fix it, we'll say so on the call.
You bring
Last month's P&L. That's it. No prep, no forms.
We do
Read it live and tell you what it says about margin, owner pay and your next hire.
You leave with
The two or three things worth fixing first, whether or not you hire us.
No deck, no pitch. If we're not the right people for it, we'll say so on the call.