Fractional CFO for marketing agencies
The layer that decides, sitting on top of the layer that recordsFour layers own your numbers. Most agencies only have two.
Your CPA files last year. Your bookkeeper records last month. Neither of them 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.
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.
Forecasts built on your real levers
A forecast that grows revenue 15% a year because last year grew 15% is arithmetic, not a forecast. 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 in practice
For one agency we built the 2026 forecast from the bottom up instead of from a growth rate. Recurring revenue split by service model, then each model split into small and large accounts by customer count and average price, with the threshold between them set from their own book. 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 something cheaper. When Q1 closed, actuals, forecast and the prior year came in nearly identical. The full story is here.
For another agency we ran three: hold everything flat and roll Q1 forward, grow revenue at the historical 15% to 20% with no cost changes, or blend modest growth with real cost cuts. Only the third one 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.
That includes the unglamorous work. Modelling a maternity leave payroll structure at a reduced rate. Benchmarking a new account manager role across pay bands before anyone posts the job. Setting the hiring gate thresholds and the cash-on-hand target that has to clear first.
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. One services agreement makes that a standing quarterly deliverable.
What you get, by tier
The advisory depth is the tier. Bookkeeping is identical across all three.
- Starter, $500 to $800 a month. Semi-annual financial health call, monthly Loom review.
- 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 reforecasts.
Every Growth and Scale engagement opens with the OS Audit as its foundation month. Full detail on pricing.
One person, not a bench
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 100 consulting behind it.
One client put the shape of it better than we do: it's "kind of like a fractional CFO, if I can call it that," stepping in "without having to add headcount."
Owner, B2B video agency
Questions
The ones people actually ask on the first callHow 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 Records, Closes and Decides together, so the forecast is built on numbers we closed ourselves rather than on a file someone hands over.
What revenue range does this actually 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 actually 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 actually 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
A 30-minute call, and you will know whether this fitsMonthly bookkeeping, a Fathom dashboard, and fractional CFO advisory for marketing and creative agencies doing $300K to $5M. Logan works every account.