The Fractional CFO Advantage
What I shared at the CIMA Members in Practice Conference — and the £10M problem most founders don’t see coming
Last week I spoke at the AICPA & CIMA Members in Practice Conference on what genuine fractional CFO leadership looks like — what it is, whether it’s right for your practice, and how to do it well. Whether you were in the room or couldn’t make it, here’s the heart of the talk in one place.
Why do so many businesses stall at £10M?
Crossing £1M in revenue is a triumph. Reaching £10M is a transformation — and most businesses that get stuck somewhere in between don’t get stuck because of sales.
They get stuck because of founder behaviour.
This isn’t a criticism of founders; it’s the opposite. Think about what makes a founder successful early on. They’re all over the numbers. They know the bank balance before they check their phone in the morning. They’re instinctive, fast, and scrappy with cash. Those traits get them to £1M.
The problem is that the very same traits — operating from instinct, managing cash reactively, making financial decisions alone — actively prevent the next stage of growth. At £5M, £8M, £10M, founders need infrastructure, not instinct. Forecasts, not feelings. A financial partner who can push back, not a bookkeeper who reports what’s happened.
That’s the gap a fractional CFO fills.
What does a fractional CFO actually do — and how is it different from a part-time FD?
This is where I spend a lot of time in conversations with potential clients, because there’s real confusion in the market. A fractional CFO is not a part-time finance director. It’s not a bookkeeper with a grander title. And it’s not a project consultant who arrives, delivers a report, and leaves.
Done well, it’s a scoped, ongoing engagement at the strategic level — sitting alongside the founder, attending board meetings, owning the financial narrative, and making decisions rather than just modelling them.
The practical difference: a fractional CFO is engaged for a defined scope of work, not a defined number of days. That scope might be: build and run the monthly board pack; lead a fundraising process; prepare the business for an exit; or simply be the financial brain the founder currently isn’t. The engagement is designed around the outcome, not the hours.
Is a fractional CFO engagement right for my practice?
This was the question I got asked most in the room, and honestly it’s the right one to start with. Not every MiP should offer fractional CFO services. Not every accountant has the personality or experience for it.
The profile that tends to work: you’ve spent time inside businesses, not just auditing or compliance-checking them. You’re comfortable being in the room when decisions get made — and comfortable being the person who sometimes says “that’s the wrong decision.” You can hold a strategic conversation without reaching for a spreadsheet as a comfort blanket.
If that resonates — you’re probably closer to this than you think. The limiting belief I hear most often is “I don’t have enough experience at that level yet.” In practice, the founders who need fractional CFOs most urgently are often at the stage where your experience is exactly what they need. They’re not looking for someone who’s run a FTSE 250 finance function. They’re looking for someone who can look them in the eye and tell them the truth.
How do you price a fractional CFO engagement without undervaluing the work?
Day rates are a trap. They anchor the client to time rather than value, they invite scope creep, and they create a perverse incentive to take longer rather than work smarter.
What I recommend — and what we do at WrightCFO — is scoped monthly engagements with a fixed retainer, defined by the output rather than the input. The scope defines what you’re responsible for. The retainer is priced on the value of that to the business, not the hours you’ll spend on it.
For context: a business paying £5,000/month for a fractional CFO is paying a fraction of a full-time hire while getting strategic leadership at the exact moment it’s needed. Framed that way, the conversation is about ROI — not about whether £500 a day is more or less than the next person. That’s the conversation worth having.
What’s the most important thing a fractional CFO brings that isn’t on the CV?
I ended the talk with this, and it’s the thing I genuinely believe most.
The most valuable thing a fractional CFO brings isn’t expertise. It’s the freedom to tell a founder they’re going down the wrong path — without the fear of losing their job for saying it.
An employed FD has skin in the game in ways that compromise candour. A fractional CFO is engaged for their judgement — and that judgement is only worth anything if it’s genuinely independent. The scope-based engagement model protects that independence in a way that employment simply cannot.
That’s what founders in this bracket actually need. Not more reporting. Not more spreadsheets. The courage to use the truth.
Grateful to CIMA UK & Ireland and everyone who made it such a good day.
I’m always happy to compare notes with others building fractional practices, or to talk with founders wrestling with the £10M transition. You’ll find me and the team at WrightCFO.
