What a fractional CFO does in 10 hours a week and what it costs

A fractional CFO working 10 hours a week owns your financial planning, cash forecast, monthly reporting and investor or lender conversations. At senior US rates of $175 to $300 an hour, that is roughly $7,600 to $13,000 a month, before the platform fee if you hire through a marketplace.

That is the short answer. The longer answer is about how those ten hours are actually spent, because a fractional CFO is not a full-time CFO squeezed into a smaller box. The job changes shape when the hours shrink, and the best people design the week on purpose.

What a fractional CFO is and is not

A fractional CFO is an experienced finance executive who works for your company a set number of hours each week or month, usually as an independent contractor. They sit in your leadership meetings, own the finance function, and answer to the CEO. They are not an outsourced bookkeeper and they are not a one-off consultant who hands over a slide deck and leaves.

The difference matters. A bookkeeper records what happened. A controller makes sure the records are right and the books close on time. A CFO uses those records to decide what to do next: how much runway you have, whether you can afford to hire, what a price change does to margin, and how to explain all of it to a board or a bank.

If your books are messy, you may need a fractional controller first, or a CFO who brings one in. If your books are clean and the questions are about strategy, cash and fundraising, a fractional CFO is the right seat.

How the 10 hours are usually spent

There is no single schedule, but most senior people converge on a similar rhythm. Think of it as a weekly cadence with a heavier monthly cycle on top. A typical week looks like this.

• Two to three hours on reporting and review. Checking the books, reviewing the close in the weeks it happens, and reading the dashboard that the founder and board see.
• Two to three hours on forecasting and planning. Updating the cash forecast, the hiring plan and the budget against actuals.
• Two hours on leadership time. A standing meeting with the CEO, plus ad hoc questions from sales, operations or the head of product about pricing, spend and contracts.
• One to two hours on external work. Lender or investor updates, diligence requests, insurance and tax coordination with outside advisors.
• One hour of buffer. Something always comes up, from a customer who wants net-60 terms to an audit question.

In the monthly close week, the balance shifts toward review and reporting. In the weeks before a fundraise or a budget cycle, planning and external work take over. A good fractional CFO tells you in advance which weeks run heavy so the hours cap does not surprise anyone.

The core deliverables at 10 hours a week

A trustworthy monthly close

The CFO does not usually enter transactions. They set the close calendar, define who does what, and review the output. The goal is a clean set of statements within a fixed number of business days after month end, with the same format every month so trends are easy to see.

A rolling cash forecast

This is the single most useful thing a part-time finance leader builds. A 13-week cash view, updated weekly, shows when money comes in, when it goes out, and where the gaps are. A longer 12 to 24 month model sits behind it and answers hiring, pricing and fundraising questions.

Budget versus actuals

Each month the CFO compares plan to reality and explains the differences in plain language. The point is not to produce variance tables. It is to give the CEO two or three decisions to make.

Unit economics and pricing input

Which customers are profitable, what a new customer really costs to win and serve, and how long it takes to earn that cost back. These numbers shape sales targets, discounts and which channels deserve more money.

Investor, board and lender materials

Board decks, update emails and data rooms. Even a company that is not raising money benefits from a monthly one-page summary that a bank, an acquirer or a new board member could read cold.

What 10 hours does not cover

Ten hours is a lot for a focused senior person and not much for everything a finance team does. It does not cover day-to-day bookkeeping, payroll processing, accounts payable runs, tax return preparation or a full audit. Those belong to a bookkeeper, a payroll provider or an outside accounting firm. The CFO coordinates them and checks the output.

It also does not cover a company in crisis. If you are running out of cash in six weeks, in the middle of a restatement, or closing a financing with a hard deadline, you will want 15 or 20 hours for a while. That is a normal reason to raise the cap in the contract, and a good reason to agree the notice period up front.

What it costs by hours per week

The senior US range for a fractional CFO is $175 to $300 an hour. Monthly cost is the hourly rate times hours per week times 4.33, the average number of weeks in a month. Here is how that plays out at four common levels of commitment.

Compare that with a full-time CFO, where salary, bonus, equity, benefits and payroll taxes together are usually far higher than the 10-hour figure. Many companies under about $20 million in revenue do not have enough finance work to keep a full-time executive busy. Paying for the hours you use is the point.

A worked example with the platform fee

Say a 35 person software company hires a fractional CFO at $225 an hour for 10 hours a week. The monthly cost is $225 times 10 times 4.33, which is $9,743 in specialist fees.

On Side.work, the company pays a platform fee on billings that depends on its plan. On the Growth plan the fee is 8 percent, so $779 on that month. The company receives one invoice for $10,522. The specialist keeps 100 percent of the $9,743 agreed rate and is paid through the payment processor after the company approves the weekly timesheets.

The fee is shown before you sign, not hidden in the rate. You can see the full numbers on the pricing page, including the 12 percent fee on Starter and 5 percent on Scale.

Signs 10 hours a week is the right size

Ten hours tends to fit when several of these are true.

• You have a bookkeeper or an accounting firm, but nobody who owns the forecast.
• The founder still approves most spending and wants to stop being the finance department.
• You have a board, investors or a lender who expect regular numbers.
• You are planning a raise, a large hire, a price change or an acquisition in the next two quarters.
• Month end takes too long, or nobody is sure which version of the numbers is right.

If only the first and last apply, five hours is likely enough. If you are in the middle of a transaction or a restructure, plan for 15 or more.

How to run the engagement well

The first month decides whether the engagement works. Ask for a written plan for the first 30 days that names the deliverables, the meeting schedule and the systems access the CFO needs. Common early items are a review of the chart of accounts, a first cash forecast, a list of the five metrics the CEO wants every month, and a clear picture of what is owed and to whom.

Agree on how you will talk. A short weekly call with the CEO and an async channel for questions usually beats a long meeting. Ask the CFO to send a one-page summary after each call, so decisions are written down.

Set the hours cap and the notice period in the contract. A weekly cap protects your budget. A notice period of two weeks protects continuity if either side needs to step back. If you want help with the scoping step, read how to scope a part-time senior role so the first month pays off.

Questions to ask in the first call

You are not testing whether the person knows accounting. You are testing whether they can run this function for a company your size.

• What stage and size were the last three companies you worked with, and what did you change in the first 90 days?
• How many clients do you take at once, and how do you schedule your week?
• What does your first cash forecast look like, and how do you keep it current?
• Who do you want on the team, a bookkeeper, a controller, a payroll provider, and what do you do if they are not good enough?
• When would you tell me 10 hours is not enough, or too much?

Listen for specifics. A strong answer names the format of the deliverable, how often it updates, and who sees it. A vague answer about adding value or optimizing finance is a warning.

Fractional CFO or a different seat

Not every company needs a CFO. If you mostly need a clean close and compliance, a controller at 10 hours a week costs less, at $110 to $180 an hour. If you need modeling and budgeting but not executive leadership, an FP&A lead runs $120 to $200 an hour. If your problem is that the whole operation lacks structure, a fractional COO may be the better first hire.

You can also combine seats. A common pattern is a 10 hour CFO plus a 5 to 8 hour controller, so the leader spends their time on forecasting and strategy while the controller keeps the books tight.

Where to go next

If you want to see who is available and at what rate, start with a role brief on the fractional CFO page. You enter the hours per week and budget, review a ranked shortlist with availability and rates, send intros, and sign a contract with an hours cap and notice period. Weekly timesheets keep the spend visible, and you pay one invoice for approved hours and the platform fee.