The business grew.The finance function didn't.
I'm a CPA and fractional CFO for growing companies, typically $1M to $50M in revenue. I connect the books to the business, so the numbers become something your leadership team, board, and lenders can actually use.
Usually nothing is on fire. That's the point.
Most companies don't call me in a crisis. They call when what worked at $1M doesn't work at $10M, or what worked at $10M doesn't work at $30M.
You don't need someone to fix the books. You need someone to connect them to the business.
- i.Someone senior is still rebuilding the numbers in a spreadsheet at 10 p.m.
- ii.Accounting explains last month, but can't tell you much about next quarter.
- iii.Cash is getting harder to predict. See the cash model →
- iv.Nobody fully trusts the forecast.
- v.The board, the bank, or investors are asking better questions than the reporting can answer.
- vi.Big decisions are tangled together, and nobody owns the whole picture.
Two quick ways to see where you stand.
One takes sixty seconds. The other answers the question I hear more than any other.
Six statements. Rate each one honestly. Nothing is saved or sent unless you choose to.
Answer the six statements to see where you stand.
"Revenue's up. Why is cash down?"
It usually has a boring, fixable answer: growth ties up cash in receivables faster than profit replaces it.
It starts healthy. Put in numbers close to your own, then try growing faster or collecting slower, and watch what happens to the cash.
Simplified on purpose. The real version is the first thing I build with you.
24-month cash model
LIVERevenue grows monthly; receivables scale with DSO; no debt, inventory, or capex.
The person you call when something important lands on the desk.
Sometimes it's a financing, a forecast, or a board meeting. Sometimes it's margins that don't add up, a lender asking for things you don't have, a hire nobody's sure the company can afford, a contract, a system, or a spreadsheet that makes no sense.
I handle the strategy conversation and the work underneath it. Capital strategy in the morning; payroll data, customer profitability, or a bank reconciliation in the afternoon, whatever it takes to get the answer right.
I don't deliver a deck once a month and disappear. I work alongside leadership, the accounting team, bankers, attorneys, tax advisors, and whoever else it takes to get it done.
Where do you sit?
Companies typically $1M–$50M in revenue, across tech and SaaS, financial services and fintech, video games and entertainment, consumer products and manufacturing, professional services, staffing, government contracting, and law firms. Here's what it looks like from your chair.
A few things I'd tell you over coffee.
Sophisticated doesn't mean complicated.
If you need fifteen tabs and a finance degree to understand what I'm telling you, I haven't done my job.
Good information makes a decision easier.
If it doesn't, it's just reporting.
"That's not finance" is a cop-out.
Payroll, pricing, contracts, hiring, and insurance all turn into financial problems eventually. I follow the issue wherever it goes.
"I don't know" is a fine place to start.
The dangerous number is the one everyone's too confident about.
Simple, on purpose.
Usually a monthly retainer. Sometimes a defined project first so we can both see how we work together. You're hiring me personally, not a firm that hands you off to someone junior, and I keep a small number of clients so I can actually be involved.
I'm probably not the right fit if…
- You want a title on the org chart or a monthly board deck, and not much else.
- You'd rather not have someone question the assumptions.
- You need a large outsourced finance department with a bench of accountants underneath it.
The only time I'm comfortable with things up in the air.Off the clock · Seattle
About Doug
I started my career at Moss Adams (now Baker Tilly) in 2007, then moved steadily closer to the operations side of the business: accounting, finance, operations, capital raising, strategic planning, and executive leadership. Along the way I helped support a $200M+ Series A financing.
At some point I noticed the part of the CFO job I liked most wasn't running the finance function. It was being dropped into a complicated situation, figuring out what was actually going on, and building whatever was missing. Going fractional let me do more of that.
Outside of work, I'm a husband and dad to two kids who keep life wonderfully unpredictable. When I'm not at the whiteboard or deep in a model, you'll find me chasing live music across the Pacific Northwest or planning the next road trip somewhere worth the drive.
Tell me what doesn't add up.
A few sentences is plenty. I'll reply personally, usually within a day, and if I'm not the right fit I'll tell you and point you to someone who is.