Fractional CFO vs Full-Time CFO in Tampa
There's a version of this decision that has nothing to do with money and it trips up more companies than cost ever does.
A lot of businesses hire a CFO for the title. It signals seriousness to a lender, a board, or an investor. But a title on an org chart doesn't produce better decisions, and paying senior salary for a signal is an expensive way to buy reassurance.
Start with the work you need done. The right title follows from that, not the other way round.
Revenue is the wrong trigger
Nearly all guidance on this answers with a number. Fractional around $5M, full-time past $20M.
Revenue measures size. It doesn't measure complexity, and complexity is what actually fills a CFO's week. I've seen $30M businesses run comfortably fractional and $6M businesses that genuinely needed someone present daily.
The trigger that actually works
Ask how often finance decisions arrive unscheduled.
If your difficult questions come on a rhythm, monthly close, a quarterly lender package, an annual budget, an occasional raise, fractional suits you. The work is deep and periodic and doesn't require daily presence.
If your difficult questions arrive at 4pm Tuesday and can't wait for Thursday's call, that's a full-time role. Usually it's driven by multiple entities, covenant-heavy debt, an active acquisition programme, or a finance team big enough to need managing every day.
Sometimes it's neither, yet
A CFO turns financial data into decisions. When the underlying data is unreliable, that conversion just produces confident, expensive mistakes more quickly.
I've been asked to find an unprofitable service line at a company whose margins moved sharply every month. No service line was the problem. Revenue was being recognised in the wrong periods. The analysis would have produced a decisive answer to a question that didn't exist.
Dependable monthly numbers are a far cheaper problem than a mis-hire. Fix that first.
The three roles side by side
| Fractional CFO | Full-time CFO | Controller | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suits | Periodic high-stakes calls | Daily high-stakes calls | Accurate recording |
| Direction | Forward | Forward | Backward |
| Commitment | Month to month | Salary, equity, severance | Salary |
| Ramp | Days | Three to six months | Weeks |
| Breaks when | Decisions can't wait | Complexity doesn't justify cost | You need strategy, not accuracy |
Plenty of companies who believe they want a CFO actually want reliable monthly numbers. That's controller work, and buying it at CFO rates is poor value.
Working with me
I'm Ben Cohen, founder of Visionary Arc Finance. Four years at PwC as a Senior Manager advising Fortune 500 and global clients, and before that acquisition and divestiture operations in-house at Johnson & Johnson.
I work remotely with Tampa Bay companies, generally $2M to $50M in revenue, on US hours. You work with me directly.
If the honest answer is that you need better reporting rather than a CFO, I'll say so on the first call.
Common questions
Can this become a full-time hire later?
Often it should. I'll help write the job description, set comp, and interview finalists. Your permanent hire inherits working models rather than starting from nothing.
How is this different from our CPA?
Your CPA files taxes and keeps you compliant, looking backward at closed periods. A CFO looks forward at decisions not yet made. I work alongside yours.
Are you based in Tampa?
No, and I'd rather be upfront. I work remotely with US companies on US hours. Forecasting, modelling and decision support happen over calls and shared files, so you're paying for experience rather than office space.