Fractional CFO Services for Growing Businesses

Our Firm

Excel Complete offers a unique combination of finance and technology expertise, allowing our fractional CFOs to provide both strategic guidance and hands-on execution.

Discovery calls are led by Allen Frantsen, CPA, Principal Consultant, whose experience spans Fortune 500 leadership, growing businesses, and nonprofit organizations. We'll help determine the right level of CFO support for your business.

When to Hire a Fractional CFO

A fractional CFO is most valuable when a business needs clarity, structure, and stronger financial direction. Common situations include:

• Business growth: Your business has grown, but your financial processes haven't kept up.
• Financing or due diligence: You need financial information for a bank, investor, or business acquisition.
• Recent acquisition: Financial reporting and processes need to be brought together after an acquisition.
• Leadership transition: Your business needs financial leadership after key departures.
• Cash flow planning: You need better visibility into future cash flow and working capital.
• Financial reporting: Financial reports are inconsistent or don't provide the information leadership needs.
• Strategic planning: You need budgeting, forecasting, or financial analysis to support major business decisions.

For many companies, hiring a permanent CFO introduces unnecessary cost and delays:

• A full-time CFO typically earns a base salary of $200,000+, before bonuses, equity, and benefits.
• A Fractional CFO can reduce executive finance costs by $150,000 or more per year while providing the strategic expertise your business needs.
• Executive searches often take 3 to 9 months, leaving organizations without experienced financial leadership during critical periods of growth, acquisitions, or operational change.

CFO Assessment

Excel Complete offers a CFO assessment, delivered for $1,500. We'll meet on-site for a leadership discussion and to review financial reporting, systems, and workflows to develop an understanding of the organization. Where helpful, we also meet with accounting, operations, and IT personnel to better understand key processes.

Within three business days, you will receive a CFO assessment outlining key findings, priorities, and recommendations. This session delivers clarity and a practical plan you can act on, whether as a standalone engagement or the starting point for ongoing fractional CFO support.

Common locations for CFO assessments:

• Detroit, MI
• Grand Rapids, MI
• Toledo, OH
• Akron, OH
• Columbus, OH
• Chicago, IL
• Cleveland, OH
• Cincinnati, OH
• Pittsburgh, PA
• Indianapolis, IN

*For other locations, scheduling may require 2–3 days, and travel costs may vary.

Fractional CFO Rates

Fractional CFO engagements start at $3,500 per month and cover up to 20 hours of executive financial leadership. This allows us to focus on your highest-priority needs while keeping your overhead manageable.

Most engagements last 12 months or longer. Because every business has different needs, our services are flexible and can be adjusted as your company grows. There are no long-term contracts. Fractional CFO services are provided on a month-to-month basis.

Our Process for Fractional CFO Services

Fractional CFO engagements with Excel Complete follow a simple three-step process.

1. Assess Your Business

We review your financial statements, reporting, cash flow, systems, and business goals to identify opportunities and understand your biggest financial challenges.

2. Build a Financial Strategy

Together, we develop a financial roadmap that may include budgeting, forecasting, cash flow planning, KPI reporting, financing strategies, and recommendations to improve financial performance.

3. Ongoing CFO Support

We become an extension of your leadership team by providing monthly financial reviews, strategic guidance, reporting, and ongoing support as your business grows.

Financial Strategy

We help companies evaluate financial opportunities, risks, and priorities so leadership can make informed business decisions. Through forecasting, financial analysis, and scenario planning, we provide a clear understanding of the potential impact of major business initiatives.

Services include:

• Financial forecasting and scenario modeling
• Pricing and profitability analysis
• Growth and expansion planning
• Capital planning
• Margin analysis
• New product or business unit evaluation
• Investment and project analysis
• Performance benchmarking
• Market research

Market research is a unique offering from Excel Complete because our Fractional CFOs combine financial strategy with statistics. We help companies evaluate customer demand, competitive positioning, pricing strategies, and market opportunities before investing capital. Our research also includes custom statistical models for retail sales forecasting and scenario planning.

Cash Flow Management

Managing cash flow is one of the most important responsibilities of a fractional CFO. We help leadership understand cash inflows, cash outflows, and upcoming cash needs through better reporting and forecasting. With greater visibility, organizations can make more informed financial decisions, improve liquidity, and reduce cash flow risk.

One unique way we help clients strengthen cash flow is by implementing automated accounts payable systems. Automated approvals for routine purchases, scheduled payments, and real-time visibility into outstanding obligations help improve spending oversight, reduce manual work, and support more accurate cash flow forecasting.

Services include:

• Weekly cash planning
• 13-week cash flow forecasting
• Collections strategy
• Accounts payable planning
• Vendor negotiations
• Working capital optimization
• Inventory planning
• Liquidity management
• Cash flow reporting

Financial Reporting

Reliable reporting helps leadership understand business performance and make informed decisions. We help organizations improve financial reporting through standardized reporting packages, KPI dashboards, variance analysis, and month-end reporting processes. Our goal is to provide accurate, timely information that supports day-to-day management and long-term planning.

For many clients, we build custom reporting servers that connect multiple business applications into a single reporting platform. This provides a centralized source for financial reporting, supports dynamic dashboards, and fills gaps in existing ERP systems. We also build custom general ledger mappings and reporting logic, making board reports and executive reporting available with a single click.

Services include:

• Financial reporting packages
• KPI selection and presentation
• Month-end close support
• Budget-to-actual variance analysis
• Cash flow reporting
• Board packages with commentary
• Financial statement preparation
• Operational metrics

System Integration

Strong financial reporting depends on reliable systems and data. We help organizations improve reporting processes by integrating accounting, ERP, and operational systems. Custom general ledger mapping, custom trial balances, and related reports, often on a separate reporting server, are common strategies we use across engagements to unify systems.

Services include:

• ERP and accounting system integration
• Custom general ledger mapping
• Trial balance and financial reporting automation
• Month-end close process improvements
• Reporting database and data warehouse design
• KPI and management reporting systems
• Custom reporting development
• Financial data quality reviews
• NetSuite consulting services

Risk Assessment

Growing companies often focus on day-to-day operations and may not have time to evaluate long-term risks and opportunities. We help organizations identify potential issues before they become significant problems and evaluate opportunities that may support future growth, profitability, or business value.

For companies seeking outside investment, financing, or a future acquisition, risk assessments are critical. Identifying issues early allows organizations to address concerns before they become obstacles during due diligence, capital raises, or strategic transactions.

Services include:

• Customer concentration analysis
• Vendor concentration analysis
• Employee retention and succession planning
• Industry and market trends
• Expansion and investment risk evaluation
• Mergers, acquisitions, and due diligence support
• Growth opportunity analysis

Financing Support

Access to capital depends on credible financial information and effective financial leadership. We work alongside stakeholders to prepare financial reports, evaluate financing options, and present information to lenders, helping organizations secure the capital needed for growth.

Our finance and technology background allows us to build financial models using operational, accounting, and market data. We help evaluate expansion opportunities, test pricing and revenue assumptions, perform market research, and prepare financial information for banks, investors, and private equity firms.

Services Include:

• Presentations to banks
• Investor vs. bank financing analysis
• SBA loan preparation
• Financial modeling
• Expansion analysis
• Investor reporting
• Due diligence support
• Business valuations

Inventory Management

Excel Complete helps businesses design warehouse workflows and build tools that support complex inventory management. Whether you're managing a single warehouse or multiple locations, we'll streamline inventory tracking while integrating with your existing accounting system.

One project helped a clothing distributor simplify its receiving process. Employees scanned a shipping label, and the system automatically pulled up the related purchase order. They could quickly select items that were included in the shipment. The result was faster receiving, improved inventory accuracy, and real-time visibility into outstanding purchase orders.

Services Include:

• Warehouse workflow design and optimization
• Barcode scanner applications
• Custom inventory tracking systems
• Multi-location inventory management
• Warehouse rack, bin, and location tracking
• Receiving and purchase order automation
• ERP and accounting system integrations
• Inventory reconciliation and cycle count programs
• Year-end physical inventory counts
• Inventory dashboards and KPI reporting
• Custom warehouse workflow automation

Frequently Asked Questions

These questions highlight how we approach our fractional CFO services.

Do your fractional CFO services include automated financial reporting?

We build automated reporting tools that pull data directly from your accounting and ERP systems, eliminating manual workflows. Whether you use NetSuite, SAP, or other financial reporting platforms, we streamline financial statements, variance analysis, and board reporting.

Do your CFO services offer integrated financial reporting?

Yes. Excel Complete connects your accounting, ERP, CRM, and operational systems into a single reporting platform, giving you accurate financial reports and eliminating spreadsheets and manual exports.

Do your CFO services offer advanced scenario analysis capabilities?

Excel Complete delivers scenario analysis as part of fractional CFO work. We model how decisions, pricing, costs, investments, or market shifts impact cash flow, runway, and outcomes. Using custom models and data, we test assumptions and produce clear, defensible decision-making scenarios.

Can a fractional CFO help validate new products, markets, or business units?

A fractional CFO uses market research and financial modeling to validate new opportunities and assess their potential. This includes sales forecasting, pricing studies, customer feedback analysis, and location intelligence modeling to evaluate physical expansion or regional performance trends.

Do you work on-site?

Yes, our Fractional CFOs can work on-site. While many client engagements are performed remotely with occasional on-site meetings, we can tailor an engagement to be fully on-site based on your business needs.