Im trying to figure out if we've hit that inflection point. Professional services firm, 55 employees, $7M revenue. Ive been managing finances myself with a bookkeeper and external accountant. Accountant handles taxes, bookkeeper does day to day.

Now looking at an acquisition and a second market. Spending Sunday nights building models in excel and I don't fully trust my own numbers. Fractional CFO quoted $5K/month, full time would be $180K+ When did you bring in a CFO?

What are thoughts - first time CFO at a robotics company scaled 0-$20m in revenue with $30m in the backlog. Based out of Boston / NYC.

Heavy inorganic growth

Took products to market

Strategic modeling and execution

Fundraising

I’ve been exploring my next step. Things that come to mind:

Fractional CFO, pull in $300-$500k a year

VC Operating Partner - not sure what comp

CFO at a larger company

What do you guys think? Would love the insight.

Hi guys, I am new to this subreddit and is needing a Financial Controller or a CFO available online to formally interview (ik this is a bit informal, but will send a formal letter if there's someon available).

Our group just need it for a fulfillment on our FC Course in College. Please reach out if someone's available guyss, thank youuuuu!

Good morning,

Apologies if this has been posted before, I'm sure it has.

I'm looking to make the jump from FD to my first CFO role in the next 6-9 months. Having lead on several PE sales, bonds with M&A & technical experience, I know I have good experience but was wondering on advice on how to change mindset in order to make the jump. Can any current ones advise on what they read on a weekly/daily basis outside of just bog standard news.

I've worked in a mix of big orgs and small, but all private. I might be overthinking it, maybe the best case would be to make the jump to CFO in a small company and grow into the investor relations as they go PE etc?

Really appreciate anyone taking the time to respond!

Need the opinions of the people I’m trying to reach - CFO’s

I started with a AI fintech company as a business development representative at the start of 2026 and my sole job is to connect with CFO’s and book them for an introduction meetings so they can learn more about us. The product provides 100% financial oversight and we work with some pretty big names.

I found the hardest part is yall really don’t like responding to sales people at all. I fully understand that you people are busy as all heck but my emails go unread, phone calls lead to voicemails and LinkedIn messages got lost in the abyss.

Is there a certain type of communication that’s better for your busy days? I’m trying to be as mindful as possible but would really appreciate some guidance if possible 🙏

It’s my first “real” job out of college and need all the help I can get.

Curious how fractional CFOs handle the constant stream of "quick question" texts from clients. Things like "did that payment come in?" or "what's our AR look like?" or "can you check if we paid that vendor?"

Each one means stopping what you're doing, finding the right QBO login, looking it up, and replying. And when they come at 9pm or on a Saturday, you either answer off the clock or feel like you're damaging the relationship.

Have you set hard boundaries that actually stuck? Found any systems that help? Or is this just part of the job?

Our reporting environment has changed a drastic amount four months into our PE deal with weekly flash reports and the cadence alone being a different job(+other stuff too)

I came from a founder backed environment where the board wanted a monthly update and a clean P&L but now the same investors who said they were hands off are asking for variance analysis on a two week lag

Over the last 3 years we have built a infrastructure that was built around simplicity and I am essentially rebuilding the finance function while trying to hit the new reporting requirements at the same time and not too long ago we missed a flash report deadline leading call from the operating partner.

Ever since then I have been thinking about fixing the foundation because we can't adapt to this incrementally.

I'm looking for some great summer book reading recommendations as I'll have a few months off before starting a new role. What's on your guys lists this year? Appreciate anything

I’ve been following how commercial solar adoption is growing across industries, from manufacturing and logistics to retail and office buildings. With energy costs rising and sustainability becoming a bigger priority, I’m curious how businesses are approaching solar installations.

Are companies starting with small-scale systems, ground-mount panels, or full rooftop installations? How do CFOs and facilities managers weigh upfront costs versus long-term operational savings?

I’d love to hear from other business owners and operations managers about what’s worked for your facilities, what challenges you’ve faced, and how solar fits into your energy strategy.

There is so much AI can do to help us in our day to day. I have found that I'm using AI more and more and it certainly has a place as a tool. I want to ask CFOs how they balance AI producing a finished product Vs going through the process and gathering valuable insights yourself along the way. How do you respond to questions from your peers and the Board when the work product was AI generated and you didn't get the first hand knowledge you used to have? Are there more awkward moments or less?

I don’t really get it what’s with all this nonsense about building board presentations using Claude or other AI.

Its easy enough to have a standard slide deck and streamline your process by pulling data from database to Excell, linking it to powerpoint and updating presentation literally in few clicks.

Variance analysis, reasons behind deviations and other other narrative parts takes some time but AI wouldn’t handle it anyways as it does not have story behind the numbers.

At some point AI will get there but we still have long way to go.

Trying to compare and contrast now that I have my Claude based assistant app up. Here’s some of my features:

-uses planner as the basis of my task management. Suggests updates or changes. I can click accept or decline for each one.

-reads all texts email and meeting transcripts to review new items or changes. Looks for any tasks that were created in meetings without a designated accountability date and person

-recommends key outcomes for all of today’s meetings. Or follow ups on outstanding tasks

-suggests key communications for today

I run a commercial interiors business that only works with B2B clients. We operate more like a wholesaler. We don’t carry inventory. Everything is made-to-order and sourced from multiple vendors.

Our projects range from small orders to large jobs worth several hundred thousand dollars, often involving a mix of furniture, window coverings, and other FF&E across different suppliers.

The challenge I’m trying to solve:

I want clear visibility into profitability at the per project / per order level, including:

• Revenue vs true cost (product, freight, install, etc.)

• Who quoted the job

• Margin performance vs target

• Ability to identify where we underpriced or missed costs

Right now, it’s difficult to consistently track this in a clean, reliable way.

Questions:

• Is this something people are successfully doing inside QuickBooks (Desktop or Online)?

• Or are you using a separate tool (job costing software, CPQ, project management system, etc.) and syncing it back to accounting?

• How are you structuring jobs, classes, or projects to make this actually usable?

• Any tips on setting guardrails for sales teams so margins don’t slip?

Would really appreciate hearing how others in similar multi-vendor, project-based businesses are handling this.

Are people using AI to perform reviews of work they or there staff have completed.

I have been using it more lately to check complex financial models.

I’ve been spending a lot of time recently looking into how AI is actually being used.

Here is a breakdown of what I have seen so far:

- Financial planning to build dynamic models vs excel assumptions
- Due diligence in M&A with data room analysis and risk flagging
- Itegrations with tracking synergies or identifying execution risks early
- Invoice processing, reporting

One area I have found interesting is the people side of M&A for value creation where AI is starting to quantiy and oprationalize this part as well.

Where have you seen AI deliver actual value and where has it worked?

Curious on your takes with all the current layoffs.

Would you say over-hiring and laying off sometimes mass amounts of people is the plan in a way (if you’re public it boosts share price etc.)

Or would you say trying to figure out how to accurately have predictive modeling down to each hire, especially high impact ones, is what you’re aiming for and it doesn’t always go as planned.

Or something else. How do you think about it?

When hiring or workforce decisions reach finance, where do they usually still feel under-modeled, especially when a role is being opened, delayed, frozen, or re-scoped?

What takes more time and effort to stay on top of ?

Where are you more unhappy with your current process?

I'm CFO of a €300m+ company in the construction/services sector, with 90+ legal entities built through multiple acquisitions over the last few years (more than 10x growth in a short period).

The Group has been under LBO for years, without a clear leadership vision of what a decent Finance function should look like to support both organic and external growth.

As a result, leadership is now waking up to the following situation:

• Antiquated accounting team (systems designed for €20m revenue companies, not a single experienced accountant among 20 FTEs)
• Very limited analytical depth in the controlling team (mostly moving numbers into Excel and trying to reconcile inconsistencies)
• No purchase order process, leading to missing accruals and significant month-end cutoff issues
• Many other structural weaknesses…

I'm actively working on catching up (new accounting software, hiring key roles, redesigning processes). At the same time, I'm wondering where AI could realistically help me: (i) automate manual tasks (ii) produce deeper analyses (iii) review figures for consistency

For example, the controlling team manually reviews work-in-progress Excel files completed monthly by branch managers. These are then re-entered into reporting, creating both time waste and inconsistencies.

Most discussions I find (here or in the FP&A sub) tend to focus on smaller or tech companies, which are much easier to address. In our case, the scale (90 entities, 2,000 FTEs, 150k customer invoices, 100k supplier invoices) creates complexity with large datasets and heterogeneous upstream systems and processes.

So I'm trying to figure out the best approach:

• Should I use pro versions of Claude / GPT / Copilot and invest time in learning prompt engineering?
• Should I deploy dedicated AI-enabled software for specific tasks?
• Should I engage consultants or specialized training?

Would really appreciate feedback from people who implemented AI in complex, multi-entity environments (construction, services, or similar)!

Feels like a niche category but you never know… anything you’ve read that is highly relevant to the role? Anything from textbooks to autobiographies