[Home](https://stoneforgegroup.com/) · Fractional CFO Sarasota

Sarasota · Bradenton · Lakewood Ranch

# A fractional CFO in Sarasota, for owner-led businesses.

Kristina Walls leads the financial practice at Stoneforge, working with owner-led businesses from $1–20M across Sarasota, Bradenton, Lakewood Ranch, Venice and North Port. Engagements run from $2,500 to $10,000+ per month, in [four partnerships](https://stoneforgegroup.com/financial-leadership/#partnerships) matched to the decisions ahead, on a thirty-day notice.

Sarasota, Florida · [(941) 231-1971](tel:+19412311971) · [Talk to Us](https://stoneforgegroup.com/contact/)

01 Sound familiar?

Owners arrive at this in four different sentences, and they are usually the same problem wearing different clothes.

**“We are profitable, so why is cash always tight?”** Profit and cash are not the same thing and never were. The gap between them is where most of the anxiety in an owner-led business lives.

**“I do not know which work actually makes money.”** Revenue by client is easy. Margin by client, after the delivery cost that never makes it onto the invoice, is the number that changes decisions.

**“Our pricing was set a long time ago.”** Set against costs that have moved since, and never revisited because the work kept coming – which is exactly what hides it.

**“There is a decision waiting and I cannot see far enough ahead to make it.”** The hire, the lease, the equipment, the loan. The question is not whether it is a good idea; it is whether this business can carry it, starting when.

Cash · next 13 weeks Illustrative

Floor
$120k

Cash today $312k

Lowest point, week 9 $148k

Headroom then $28k

**Week 9 is eight weeks out** – quarterly tax, the insurance renewal and payroll all land in the same week. The floor is one month of payroll.

Replace the equipment · $40k *

Buy outright, now Week 9 falls to **$108k** – $12k under the floor.

Finance at 7% over three years **$1,235 a month.** Week 9 holds at $146k. $4,463 in interest, and it is yours at the end.

Lease over three years **$1,050 a month.** Week 9 holds at $146k. Lower monthly, but $45,800 in total if you buy it at fair market value at the end.

Buy outright, week 13 Clears with **$81k** to spare – and four more months on the machine you are replacing.

* Each route is taxed differently – Section 179, bonus depreciation, and how lease payments are treated all change the real cost. We work that through before you commit.

**A worked example, not a client’s numbers.** Yours is built from your own. What stays the same is seeing week 9 while there is still time to change it.

02 The seat

A full-time thinker about your numbers, without the full-time cost of a CFO. That is the honest description of it.

**CFO (Chief Financial Officer).** A senior executive responsible for managing a company's financial actions – financial planning, risk management, record-keeping, and financial reporting. [Full entry →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#cfo)

The seat is not a bigger [bookkeeper](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#bookkeeper) and it is not an annual visit from an accountant. It sits between the two and above both: someone who holds the financial picture of the business continuously, so that when a decision arrives there is already a view rather than a scramble.

**Accountant.** A professional who prepares, reviews and interprets a business's financial records – producing the statements, handling tax filings, and advising on how the numbers should be treated. [Full entry →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#accountant)

A full-time finance leader is a salary an owner-led business between $1M and $20M cannot justify, which is why the seat usually sits empty until something forces it. Fractional exists so the leadership arrives without the payroll decision attached.

You may have seen the same seat called something else – an outsourced CFO, a virtual CFO, a part-time CFO, or a fractional finance director. Same work, different label.

03 The partnerships

## Four partnerships, matched to the decisions ahead.

The financial seat runs as four executive partnerships. Revenue is a useful guide, but the right one follows from complexity, the decisions in front of the business, and the executive involvement they require. Thirty-day notice throughout.

01

### Bedrock

Seeing the business clearly enough to decide.

Typical revenue $1M – $2.5M

Leadership cadence Monthly strategy and performance review

Monthly investment $2,500 – $3,000

02

### Cornerstone

Growth that converts into profit and cash.

Typical revenue $2.5M – $5M

Leadership cadence Twice-monthly strategy, monthly review

Monthly investment $4,000 – $5,000

03

### Keystone

Financial strategy as a way of managing the company.

Typical revenue $5M – $10M

Leadership cadence Bi-weekly strategy, monthly planning and review

Monthly investment $6,500 – $8,000

04

### Capstone

Decisions that shape the future value of the company.

Typical revenue $10M+, or a major transaction

Leadership cadence Weekly strategy, monthly review and planning

Monthly investment From $10,000

Published fractional CFO rates commonly start around three or four thousand a month and run past twenty; this ladder opens below where that begins. [The decisions each one covers, and how we partner →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/financial-leadership/#partnerships)

04 The problem this solves

The business is profitable on paper and cash still feels tight. Pricing was set years ago and nobody has revisited it because the work keeps coming. There is a decision waiting – a hire, a lease, a piece of equipment, a line of credit – and no clear read on whether the business can carry it.

None of that is a bookkeeping problem. The books may be immaculate. It is that nobody is doing the financial thinking: looking forward instead of back, and turning the numbers into something you can actually decide on.

That is the seat a [fractional CFO](https://stoneforgegroup.com/financial-leadership/) holds and answers for – and in an owner-led business between $1M and $20M it is usually empty, because a full-time finance leader is a salary the business cannot justify yet.

05 What the work covers

Cash-flow forecasting and scenario planning. Unit economics and margin clarity – which clients, which services and which jobs actually pay. Pricing. Budgeting, and the discipline to keep it live rather than filed. KPI dashboards that report the handful of things that move the business rather than everything that can be counted. Capital strategy, SBA loan readiness and M&A support when those are on the table.

**Scenario Planning.** Running a decision through the numbers before committing to it – the hire, the price change, the loan, the slow quarter – and seeing what each outcome does to cash and profit. [Full entry →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#scenario-planning)
**Unit Economics.** What one unit of the business actually earns and costs – one job, one client, one service line – once everything it consumes is counted. [Full entry →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#unit-economics)

All of it in plain language. If an expert has to be clever to explain something, nobody understands it and no progress gets made – so plain language is the discipline here, not a nicety.

06 Owners here, in their own words

Two of these are neighbours – Ace Electric in Sarasota and Pike Law Firm in Bradenton.

“This is my first Business Coach and I am very happy we met. Kristina and James have been very helpful in direction of our business and understanding our financials. Also they have been instrumental in preparing myself for winding down my hours from 60 hrs to and a start of 50 hrs with further reduction of hrs coming. Highly recommend! Thank you Stoneforge”

**Bob Friedman · Owner, Ace Electric, Sarasota**

“Two months later, Kristina and James have helped me to institute protocols allowing me to see where my time is being wasted, how I can leverage technology and people to do the jobs that I should not be doing, and how to set up my marketing to reach the people that can help me grow my business. If this is what they have accomplished in just two months, I am excited to see where I am in one year!”

**Peter Pike · Owner, Pike Law Firm, Bradenton**

More outcomes, and the rest of the words, are on [the proof page](https://stoneforgegroup.com/proof/).

07 What it costs to leave it

The decisions get made either way. Without a financial read they get made on instinct, and instinct is expensive in four particular ways.

**Late.** The hire, the equipment, the lease – committed to after the moment that would have made them pay, because nobody could say whether the business could carry it at the time.

**Mispriced.** Rates set years ago against costs that have moved since. The work still comes in, which is exactly what hides it.

**Deferred.** The decision that keeps getting pushed because the number to justify it does not exist, until it is made by circumstance instead.

**On someone else's terms.** A lender, a buyer or a landlord arrives with their own read of your numbers, and it is the only read in the room.

08 How the engagement runs

A standing rhythm rather than a project with an end date. Checkpoints you can rely on, a monthly set of priorities that actually changes what happens next, and a quarterly step back to check the direction is still the one you want.

The first ninety days have a shape. **Weeks one and two are the read** – what the numbers currently say, what they cannot yet say, and which question is most expensive to keep guessing at. **Weeks three to six are the build** – the forecast, the margin picture, and a dashboard reporting the handful of things that move this business rather than everything countable. **From week seven it is the rhythm**, and the work shifts from construction to decisions.

**Forecast.** A forward view of what the numbers will do, built from what the business knows now – work already won, work likely to be won, costs already committed, and the timing of both. [Full entry →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#forecast)

Thirty-day notice throughout. The notice is deliberate, because it keeps us accountable to the same standard we hold the business to.

09 Who it is for, and who it is not

Owner-led services businesses between $1M and $20M, on the Gulf Coast or well beyond it, facing a decision the current numbers cannot answer. Businesses where the books are probably fine and the thinking is what is missing.

It is wrong for businesses under about $1M, where the honest answer is usually a good bookkeeper and one clear pricing decision. It is wrong for pre-revenue companies looking for fundraising support. And it is wrong for any owner who wants the numbers taken away rather than made legible – handing them to someone else is how they stop being yours.

**Bookkeeper.** A professional responsible for recording a business's financial transactions. [Full entry →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#bookkeeper)

10 See where you actually are, before you talk to anyone

The [financial scorecard](https://stoneforgegroup.com/financial-scorecard/) is a free seven-area read on how the numbers are being run – whether the business is instinct-led, insight-driven or outcome-led. It takes a few minutes, no email is asked for, and nothing you answer is saved or sent.

If the block might be in the selling rather than the numbers, [the 30-second test](https://stoneforgegroup.com/where-its-stuck/) sorts that in about half a minute. And [the Anatomy of a Well-Run Business](https://stoneforgegroup.com/anatomy-of-a-well-run-business/) runs the whole business across eleven areas if you would rather see everything at once.

11 What changes

Six months in, the questions get easier – and that is the measure, more than any single number.

Cash stops being a monthly surprise, because you can see it coming far enough ahead to act rather than react. Pricing becomes a decision you make on evidence instead of a number you inherited. The question “can we afford this?” gets an answer in the same conversation it was asked in, rather than being deferred until circumstance decides.

And the reporting shrinks. Fewer numbers, chosen because they move this business, replacing a pack nobody read.

12 Who leads it

Kristina Walls leads the financial practice. More than twenty years of strategic financial leadership – finance leadership roles inside large technology businesses, and a financial consulting firm she founded and ran herself.

Plain language is the discipline, not a nicety. If an expert has to be clever to explain something, nobody understands it and no progress gets made.

13 Questions owners ask

## What does a fractional CFO in Sarasota actually do?

A fractional CFO leads the financial side of the business rather than recording it. Cash-flow forecasting so you can see what is coming rather than what already happened, unit economics so you know which work actually pays, pricing that stops being guesswork, and the read on what the numbers mean for the decision in front of you.

**Fractional CFO.** A chief financial officer's seat, held without the full-time cost. [Full entry →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#fractional-cfo)

It is senior financial leadership, embedded in the business, without the full-time cost – and it sits above bookkeeping and above the annual tax return rather than replacing either. It is not taking the numbers off your plate: the decisions stay yours, and what changes is what you can see when you make them.

## How is that different from my bookkeeper or my CPA?

Your bookkeeper records what happened and your CPA files it. Both matter and neither is the same job. A fractional CFO works forward: what the numbers are telling you about next quarter, which decision the cash position will and will not support, and where margin is quietly leaking.

**CPA (Certified Public Accountant).** A professional designation for accountants who pass the Uniform CPA Examination and meet additional state education and experience requirements. [Full entry →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#cpa)
**Cash Position.** What the business has available to spend right now, once money already committed is accounted for. [Full entry →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#cash-position)

In practice the three roles work best together, and we are happy to work alongside the bookkeeper and CPA you already have.

## What does it cost?

The financial practice runs as four partnerships, from $2,500 a month at Bedrock to $10,000 and above at Capstone. What moves it is how much of the seat you need filled and how much is going on – a straightforward monthly rhythm sits at the lower end, a loan application or an acquisition at the higher one.

You will get a plain number in the first conversation, once we have both seen what the work actually is.

## Do you meet in person?

When it matters, yes. The standing rhythm runs remotely because that is what keeps it regular, but there are conversations that are simply better had across a table, and Sarasota, Bradenton and Lakewood Ranch are a short drive.

Clients further afield work with us entirely remotely and it works well. Proximity is a convenience here, not the point.

## Who is this wrong for?

Businesses under about $1M in revenue, where the honest answer is usually a good bookkeeper and a clear pricing decision rather than a CFO. Pre-revenue startups looking for fundraising support. And any owner who wants someone to take the numbers away rather than make them legible – that is not what this is.

If that is the read, we will say so in the first conversation and point you to someone better suited.

## Is hiring a fractional CFO worth it?

It depends entirely on whether there is a decision waiting that the current numbers cannot answer. If there is – a hire, a lease, a loan, a price that has not moved in years – then the seat pays for itself in one avoided mistake, and usually sooner than owners expect.

If there is not, and the business is stable and the owner can see far enough ahead, then it is not worth it yet and we will say so. The honest test is not the cost; it is whether decisions are currently being made on instinct because nobody can put a number to them.

## What is the difference between a full-time CFO and a fractional CFO?

The work is the same. The difference is how much of it your business actually needs, and what it costs to have it.

A full-time chief financial officer is a salary in the low-to-mid six figures before benefits or a recruiter's fee, which is why an owner-led business between $1M and $20M almost never has one. A fractional CFO holds the same seat for the share of the week the business genuinely needs – $2,500 to $10,000+ a month here, in four partnerships. You get the thinking without the payroll decision.

14 Talk to Kristina

The first conversation is fifty minutes on your business, with the person who would hold the seat. You will get a plain read at the end of it: what we would look at first, and whether this is the right fit. If it is not, we will say so and point you to someone who is.

[Talk to Us](https://stoneforgegroup.com/contact/) Sarasota, Florida · [(941) 231-1971](tel:+19412311971)