By Andreas Pettersson, Founder, Leaders ADAPT
Here is the owner I hear from most often, written as a composite. He has a bookkeeper who has been with him for a decade, an outside accountant who does the tax return, and a controller he hired when the bank asked for reviewed statements. He asks me whether he needs a CFO. Then he asks what a CFO would actually do all day that those three are not already doing. Good question. It is the one this page answers.
I held the seat. When I ran a Canon company as its youngest standalone CEO, I was CEO, CFO and CTO at once for a stretch. Before that I built Arcules from zero to over 150 people and sold it. I know what the finance function looks like when the owner is doing it badly, because I did it badly first.
A CFO in a private company owns the forward looking numbers and the decisions they drive, where the bookkeeper records what happened and the controller makes sure it was recorded right. Record, verify, decide. The line between the three is where most owners get the hiring wrong.
Quick answer: A CFO owns the forward looking finances of a company: cash forecasting, pricing and margin, the budget and reforecast, lenders and investors, and the numbers side of any sale. The bookkeeper records transactions, the controller verifies them and runs the monthly close, and the CFO turns the result into decisions. Most $5M to $50M companies have the first two roles and need the third one to three days a week.
Leaders ADAPT places a fractional CFO from its own bench and stays accountable for the engagement, priced as a fixed monthly fee quoted after the first call. The salary and threshold figures on this page come from third parties and are linked with the date I read them. If their number has changed, their page wins. No provider named here pays us.
Bookkeeper, controller, CFO: the three roles table
Three roles, three jobs, three outputs. Owners fold them together because the same person often does two of them in a small company, and because the word accountant gets used for all three.
| Role | What they own | What they produce each month | When you need one |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bookkeeper | The ledger. Recording every transaction, invoices in and out, bank reconciliation, payroll entries, receipts. | A current general ledger, reconciled bank accounts, accounts receivable and payable aging. | From the first dollar of revenue. Part time or outsourced is fine for years. |
| Controller | Accuracy and control. The monthly close, the financial statements, internal controls, compliance, the audit or review, the budget versus actual. | Closed books on a fixed date, income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement, variance report against budget. | Part time near $1M in revenue, full time near $10M, or when a lender, investor or auditor asks for statements they can rely on. |
| CFO | The future and the decisions. Cash forecast, pricing and margin, budget and reforecast, capital and lenders, financial positioning for a raise or sale. | A 13 week cash forecast, a one page report with three decisions attached, a rolling forecast, the board or bank pack, the pricing view. | Fractional from $5M to $10M, or at the first lender, buyer or investor conversation. Full time near $50M, earlier if investor backed. |
The thresholds in the right hand column are a market view, not mine. Ramp's guide puts a part time controller at about $1M in revenue, a full time controller near $10M, and a full time CFO near $50M, or around $30M for investor backed companies (Ramp, September 2026). BILL draws the same lines, with a controller typical between $1M and $10M, a controller or fractional CFO between $10M and $50M, and an in house CFO from about $50M (BILL, read October 2026). Both are software companies writing for their customers. The thresholds still match what I see.
One more line from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, which groups controllers and treasurers under financial managers. Controllers oversee the preparation of financial reports, including income statements, balance sheets and forecasts, and often manage the accounting, audit and budget departments (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 data). That is the controller's whole world: the reports. The CFO's world starts where the report ends, with the question of what to do about it.
What the owner is usually missing
The owner in the composite has a bookkeeper and a controller. His books are accurate and his statements arrive on the 15th. What he does not have is anyone who will tell him, before the quarter closed, that his second largest customer had become unprofitable at the new freight rates, or that the line of credit he kept being offered would cost him his covenant headroom in a downturn.
That is the gap. A controller is paid to be right about the past. A CFO is paid to be useful about the future, and to be in the room when the decision gets made rather than in the report afterward. In a $5M to $50M company the owner usually fills that gap himself, from instinct, late at night, with a spreadsheet he does not fully trust. It works until it does not. The first time it does not is usually a bank conversation, a buyer's letter, or a cash surprise in a good year.
Our CFO advisory page covers the lighter answer, one to two hours a week with a sitting finance leader. Our fractional CFO page covers the seat itself, one to three days a week. This page is about what the seat does, so you can decide which shape of it you need.
What a CFO does week by week at $5M to $50M
Job descriptions list duties. Here is what the work looks like on a calendar, in a company this size, with a fractional CFO on two days a week.
Monday, the leadership meeting. The CFO sits in it. Not to present the numbers, to argue from them. The weekly scorecard shows cash, receivables over 60 days, gross margin for the week, pipeline. The CFO's job is the sentence after each number. Receivables are up because two customers moved to 60 day terms without anyone agreeing to it. Here is who calls them.
Cash, every week. A 13 week cash forecast, updated against the bank balance, with the three or four decisions that move it named in plain words. Which payables to hold, which customer to chase, whether the equipment purchase waits a month. In my experience this one document changes an owner's sleep more than anything else finance produces.
The close, once a month. The controller runs it. The CFO sets the calendar, holds the controller to it, and turns forty pages of statements into one page the owner can act on. Three decisions on that page, not three hundred numbers. If the close takes more than ten business days, the CFO's first project is the close.
Pricing and margin, once a quarter. Which customers, products and locations make money and which only make revenue. In owner led companies this analysis has usually never been done, because the owner set every price personally and the margin lives in his head. Putting it on paper is often the single highest return project a CFO runs in year one.
The budget and the reforecast. An annual budget the leadership team built, not one finance imposed, and a reforecast each quarter that the owner believes. The CFO owns the process and the model. The team owns the numbers in it.
Lenders, investors, buyers. When the bank calls, the CFO answers. Covenants, the renewal, the line of credit, the equipment loan. When a buyer's letter arrives, the CFO is the one who knows what the number should be and why, and runs the sell side quality of earnings before the buyer runs theirs.
The finance team. In a company this size that means the bookkeeper and the controller. The CFO leads them on the days he is there and sets the standard for the days he is not.
Add those up and you have the honest cfo job description for a private company. Everything else, the systems project, the insurance review, the lease negotiation, is real work that lands on the seat because nobody else owns it. A good CFO does it and then hands it to the right person.
What a CFO does not do
This section saves owners money, so I put it on every call.
A CFO does not keep the books. If the ledger is wrong, hiring a CFO to sit on top of it buys you an expensive person reading unreliable numbers. Fix the bookkeeping first, then the close, then bring in the person who reads the result.
A CFO does not do the tax return. Your outside accountant does. The CFO plans for tax and manages the relationship.
A CFO does not run sales or operations. If the margin problem is a pricing discipline problem in the sales team, the CFO will find it and name it. Fixing it belongs to the person who runs revenue. Our page on what a COO does draws the operations line in the same way.
A CFO does not set strategy alone. The CFO tests the strategy against cash and capital and tells the owner what it costs. The owner and the leadership team still decide.
And a CFO does not make the owner's exit decision. When the letter from a buyer arrives, the CFO's job is to make sure the owner knows what the number should be. Whether to take it stays with the owner. Our exit readiness read exists because that decision has leadership, operations and technology in it, not only finance.
Where AI fits in the finance function
Three places, and one place it does not belong.
The close. A controller with a modern ledger and an AI assistant can draft variance commentary, reconcile the odd transaction and flag anomalies in a day that used to take a week. We train leadership teams on this kind of tool use with the technical partners on our bench, and the finance function is usually the fastest adopter once someone gives it permission.
The forecast. Scenario work that needed a spreadsheet specialist can now be run in plain language, with the owner in the room. The CFO asks what happens to cash if the two largest customers move to 60 day terms, and the model answers while the meeting is still going. The numbers get argued about instead of assembled. For companies running on EOS, our AI for EOS companies guide shows where this lands in the quarterly rhythm.
The data room. Before a sale or a raise, AI tools can index contracts, pull customer concentration and flag the inconsistencies a buyer's analyst will find. The CFO gets to the soft spots first.
Where it does not belong is the judgment. Whether to take the offer, which customer to fire, how much cash to hold, whether to draw the line of credit. Our page on what not to delegate to AI is the longer version. The short one: AI can tell the CFO what the numbers say. The CFO still has to tell the owner what to do, and the owner still has to decide.
What a CFO does not fix
A CFO does not fix a company that depends on the owner for every decision. Finance will make the dependence visible, in a margin that only moves when the owner is in the room and a pipeline that stalls when he travels. Removing it is leadership work. It is why I pair the finance seat with leadership team development, because accurate numbers on top of a team that cannot run a Monday meeting without the owner is still a company priced for key person risk.
A CFO does not fix a CFO who cannot get the room to act. If you already have a finance leader and the numbers are right but the leadership meeting still goes quiet when they present, the gap is behavior, not finance. That is what CFO coaching is for, and it is cheaper than a second CFO.
A CFO does not fix a bad year on paper. Add backs and adjustments explain history to a buyer. They do not change it. The operating work comes first.
The fractional path
For most companies between $5M and $30M, the right answer to the owner's question is not a full time hire. It is the same seat, one to three days a week, on a monthly retainer, with the switch to full time named in advance.
The reasoning is cost and fit. BLS puts the median wage for financial managers at $166,570 a year as of May 2025, and a CFO with the experience to handle a lender and a buyer costs well above that once bonus and benefits are in. A company at $8M does not have five days a week of CFO work. It has two, and the other three days are controller and bookkeeper work the CFO should not be doing anyway.
The fit argument is the bigger one. A fractional CFO who has sat in a dozen companies at your size has seen your cash problem, your pricing problem and your bank conversation before. A full time hire from a larger company often has not, and spends the first year learning that a $10M company does not have a treasury department.
Three shapes, from lightest to heaviest. CFO advisory: one to two hours a week with a sitting finance leader, or a fixed price working session, when you have a controller and need judgment on top. Fractional CFO: one to three days a week inside the company, when you need the seat filled. Full time: when finance decisions arrive daily, the team needs daily leadership, or a sale is inside six months. Our fractional vs interim vs advisory page draws the lines, and the fractional executive cost page puts market rates for the seat next to COO, CTO, CMO and CRO.
Who is on the bench for this
Steve Shaw is the fractional CFO on the Leaders ADAPT bench. Steve has twenty years in finance leadership and works with owners on four things: clean books, cash discipline, financial positioning before a sale, and the numbers conversation with buyers and lenders. When an owner asks me what a CFO would do all day, Steve is the person I put in the room to show him.
Sergey Dmitriev is the fractional CTO and AI systems partner on the bench. When the reporting stack, the data room or the company knowledge system needs building so the finance function can run on something better than spreadsheets, Sergey builds it, and trains the leadership team with me.
Thor Legvold is the leadership psychologist on the bench. When the numbers are right and the leadership meeting still does not act on them, Thor's work on executive fit and team dynamics is what closes the gap finance can only measure.
Every engagement runs through Leaders ADAPT. I take the first call, match the partner, and stay in the room for the length of the engagement.
What does a CFO do FAQ
What does a CFO do in a small business?
In a private company between $5M and $50M, the CFO owns the forward looking numbers. That means the cash forecast, pricing and margin by customer and product, the budget and the plan, lender and investor relationships, and the financial side of any sale or acquisition. The CFO turns the controller's accurate history into decisions the owner can act on this quarter, and sits in the leadership meeting to argue for them.
What is the difference between a bookkeeper, a controller and a CFO?
The bookkeeper records transactions and keeps the ledger current. The controller makes sure the ledger is right, runs the monthly close, produces the financial statements and owns internal controls. The CFO reads those statements and tells the owner what to do next, with a forecast, a pricing view and a plan for cash and capital. Record, verify, decide. Most companies under $10M have the first two and need the third part time.
When does a company need a CFO?
Revenue is a rough guide. Published guidance puts a part time controller near $1M in revenue, a full time controller near $10M, and a full time CFO near $50M, or earlier for investor backed companies. The better triggers are events. A lender asking for covenants, a buyer or investor at the door, a second location, or an owner who cannot explain why margin moved. Any one of those is a CFO question.
What does a CFO not do?
A CFO does not keep the books, run payroll or file the tax return. Those belong to the bookkeeper, the controller and the outside accountant. A CFO does not run sales, decide the strategy alone, or make the owner's exit decision. And a CFO does not fix a company that depends on the owner for every decision. The numbers will show that dependence. Removing it is leadership work.
What are the main CFO responsibilities?
Six, in a private company. A cash forecast the owner believes. Reporting that arrives on a fixed calendar and fits on a page. Pricing and margin analysis by customer, product and location. The annual budget and the quarterly reforecast. Capital, meaning lenders, covenants and investors. And financial positioning before a raise or a sale, including the numbers conversation with buyers.
What does a fractional CFO do differently from a full time CFO?
The same job in fewer days. A fractional CFO works one to three days a week inside the company on a monthly retainer, owns the same six responsibilities, and sits in the same leadership meeting. What changes is availability on the other days and the depth of the finance team under them. For most companies under $30M the trade is worth it. In the last six months before a sale it may not be.
How much does a CFO earn?
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median wage for financial managers, the category that includes controllers and treasurers, at $166,570 a year as of May 2025. Published CFO salary surveys for private companies run well above that once bonus and benefits are included. A fractional CFO costs a fraction of that on a monthly retainer. Leaders ADAPT quotes its own engagements per engagement after the first call.
Start with the question nobody in your finance function can answer
Ask your bookkeeper, your controller and your accountant the same question this week. If our two largest customers moved to 60 day payment terms next month, what happens to our cash in week nine. The bookkeeper will give you the receivables. The controller will give you last quarter's cash flow statement. The accountant will say it depends. If nobody gives you a number and a recommendation by Friday, you have found the seat that is empty.
Tomorrow morning, write down the three financial decisions you made alone this quarter that you wish someone had argued with you about. That list is the first job description.
What the first conversation looks like
It is a 30 minute call with me, not a sales rep. You bring the three decisions and the last three months of reports in whatever state they are in. I tell you whether the gap is in the books, in the controller's close or in the empty CFO seat, and whether you need an advisory hour a week, a fractional CFO from the bench, or a better bookkeeper first. If the answer is a bookkeeper, I say so.
If we go ahead, Steve joins the second call, we agree the scope in days per week and the three outcomes we write down, and the fee is fixed monthly and quoted after that call. I stay in the room for the length of the engagement.
Your step for tomorrow morning: take the free assessments so I can see how the company depends on you before we talk about the numbers. Then book a fit conversation. Knowing what a CFO does is the easy part. Knowing which shape of one you need is what the call is for.
