175. The PERFECT Fractional CFO Scope for 2026

Can I tell you a secret? My name is Michael King, and over the last three and a half years, I have helped hundreds of fractional CFOs grow their firms, and the vast majority have one big problem in common. They struggle to grow their firms because they have a hard time deciding on a standardized

Scope of work. They can't decide which services to offer and how to deliver them. The thing is, it doesn't have to be that way because there is a scope of work that I found to be faster to deliver on, more impactful for clients, and allows you to charge a premium price. all while enabling you to scale your firm and build a team around you. What is this magical scope of work you ask? Let's dive in. When I think about scope of work, I think about it in two parts.

First, there's the onboarding scope of work, and then there's the ongoing scope of work. Let's start by looking at onboarding. Onboarding a new client is kind of like going on a first date. It can really only go one of two ways. In the first scenario, your date shows up late to the restaurant. You're fairly certain he's been drinking a bit before he'd arrived.

He's forgotten your name and he's rude to the waiter. He spends the entire evening talking about himself and his giant collection of Pokemon cards. Then he has the audacity to order a Diet Pepsi instead of a Diet Coke. Who even is this Joker? But in the second scenario, your date shows up early. He opens the door for you and even pulls out your chair. He saw on your IG feed that you like calamari, so he suggests that as an appetizer.

The conversation is lively and he spends most of his time asking about you and getting to know you. He's genuinely interested in your story. He's got a great beard, and he drinks Diet Coke instead of Pepsi. He sounds absolutely dreamy, if I do say so myself. Now, which of these gents has a better chance of landing a second date in an ongoing relationship? Honestly, it probably doesn't matter what the guy in the first scenario does after the first date, he's cooked. No second chance.

But the guy in the second scenario is well on his way to a great situation ship and maybe even an LTR. Now the same thing holds true for onboarding. It sets the tone for your entire relationship. If the client feels confused or unsupported or frustrated at the start, They're always gonna question whether they made the right choice or not. But if onboarding is smooth, they gain confidence in your leadership from day one and they're likely to stick around significantly longer.

So, what onboarding scope of work makes you look like the bearded, Diet Coke drinking, McDreamy? Well, it starts with understanding the financial health of the client's business. This involves diving into the client's historical financials to assess their current position. Key tasks might include things like reviewing financial statements, analyzing key metrics like margins and cash flow trends and debt levels.

It might involve identifying any red flags, such as inconsistent reporting or poor internal controls. It might even include evaluating tax selections and entity structure to make sure that they align with the client's goals. Next, you have to dive into the client's business model. So beyond the financials, you need to grasp how the business operates. This includes things like understanding revenue streams, cost drivers, and operational processes. It includes identifying the client's goals.

Short term and long term, and aligning them with the financial strategies you're gonna put forth. It also includes mapping out the systems and tools that they use, like uh accounting platforms, ERPs, CRMs, inventory management software, any of the tools like that. Third, you've got to understand the business owner's personal and business goals. What are they trying to accomplish through their business?

What income, lifestyle, family, or community goals do they have? And what are their priorities? From there, I base the rest of the onboarding scope on the specific items that were agreed upon during the sales process. You might include things like helping them get whip reporting in place in their business.

setting up some SaaS specific dashboards or reviewing their cost accounting procedures. It's really based on whatever the client identified and what you agree to during the sales process. At the end of the day, the onboarding process is really about understanding their goals, understanding their business.

and whatever specific needs were identified during the sales process. But onboarding, it's also about getting to know the client, building trust and rapport, and getting a great communication flow in place. as quickly as humanly possible. Without those things, the rest falls apart. And that's where the real magic of onboarding comes in.

And there's one other deliverable that I'm seeing that is taking all of that into an entirely different level during onboarding. And it's a bit controversial, but it's working really well for me and literally dozens of other firms that I'm coaching. And that is in person onboarding. Yeah, I know that in person onboarding is

like considerably more expensive and takes considerably more time, but it's kind of like taking a class in person versus an online course. I mean, you get a student starting at a new school in person, they meet their teachers, they make Make friends, they get comfortable quickly, they're likely to start building relationships and engaging significantly more, which is going to enhance the learning process.

On the other hand, you take a student that's taking an online course, yeah, they still get the material, but it it just hits differently. Developing relationships tends to take longer, and they tend to not go as deep. Engagement isn't nearly the same. Now, sure, you technically still get the educational material delivered, but it's entirely different in person, and the same thing holds true for onboarding. Now, look, you can still review the financials and learn about the business owner's goals.

But when you do it in person, you develop the relationships faster, you build the trust and the rapport quicker. and you ultimately get to a place where you're delivering more value faster to the client, which is what it's about at the end of the day. No, I'm not suggesting that you have to do onboarding in person. In fact, you might not be able to do that for various reasons.

But if that is an option that's available to you, I'd highly encourage you to consider it because it has been an absolute game changer for my firm and for many of the firms that I coach. Now that we have onboarding behind us, let's take a look at the scope for month-to-month services that is doing the best.

Right now. When I think of ongoing scope of work for fractional CFOs, I think about it in four distinct parts. First is the CFO call. Second is the mid month call. Third is ongoing support. And fourth are some advanced and optional scope items. Let's start by taking a look at the CFO call. The CFO call is really the bread and butter of the scope of work. The CFO call is your big monthly call with your clients where you're gonna go over all the things related to the financials of their business.

And you're covering what I call the CFO report. So what should be included in the CFO report? Well, the thesis I subscribe to is that it should be as simple as possible, but as complex as necessary. To me, the CFO report is kind of like my mom's meatloaf recipe.

Her meatloaf recipe has just enough of the right spices and ingredients to make it absolutely delicious. If she didn't include all of those ingredients, the meatloaf would be bland and disgusting. And sure, you could put in twenty different spices But then that would overcomplicate things and the meatloaf would taste disgusting. Nobody likes disgusting meatloaf. Don't cook disgusting meatloaf. The same thing holds true for your CFO report.

You've got to include enough ingredients in the report that it gives your clients valuable insights as to how their company is performing and a clear picture of what they need to do next. To achieve their goals. But I see too many fractional CFOs throwing in dozens of different financial spices, if you will, just because they have those spices in the pantry.

And just like with mom's meatloaf, the clients get overwhelmed with the KPIs and the metrics and the reports, and they end up not consuming it. That's when clients churn. If you'd like to know the specifics of what I include in the monthly CFO report, don't worry. I've got more on that later in the episode. The second deliverable in the ongoing scope of work is the mid month call.

This call typically lands two weeks after the CFO call. I found that this call is essential in getting the necessary updates from your clients so that you don't get blindsided with new information on the monthly CFO call. So what should you focus on during this mid-month call?

Well for us, I find that having specific questions around the client's sales pipeline and operational updates are the most important. The mid-month call is also an excellent time for your clients to ask you any one-off questions they might have or to ask any tactical questions about their finances.

or maybe even their business in general. My firm has included this mid-month call for years and what we've learned is that having this second call scheduled reduces the need for ad hoc calls and conversations throughout the month. But there's also a warning that comes along with If you do have a scheduled mid-month call, you better have an agenda and a purpose behind the call. What happens if you don't have an agenda and a purpose is that they become the obligatory just checking in call.

Your clients don't have time to just check in and so they'll eventually stop showing up for those calls. After a while, they start to realize that they're paying for these calls, but they're not using them, and it will detract from the perceived value of your service. Then they start questioning the entire engagement and their chances of leaving goes up drastically. The third part of the ongoing scope is ad hoc conversation. Here's the reality.

Your clients are gonna go through seasons where they might need to talk with you more than twice a month, especially early in the relationship. Now, back in the day, we tried to include a set number of free calls each month in addition to the monthly CFO call and the mid-month call.

But what we found is that the months where the client didn't use all of those calls, they ended up feeling like they weren't getting everything they paid for, similar to the just checking in mid-month call. They ended up pushing back on price and the relationship could unnecessarily sour. So what we found works really well is offering them unlimited costs. Now I know you're probably thinking that that's crazy town and there's no possible way that this could work, but just hear me out.

During the sales process and again during onboarding, we remind our clients that they have those two scheduled calls every month. We tell them that if something important and urgent pops up, that absolutely can't wait until one of those schedule calls. than just simply use the meeting booking link we provide into book a time with their CFO. When they ask for those calls, which is rare, we'll just ask them, hey, can this wait until our call next Monday?

Nine out of 10 times they say, yeah, great point, sure. On those even rarer cases where they say no, we need to talk immediately, we book the call with a smile. What we've learned is that when you work with the right clients, they respect your time and they don't book unnecessary calls.

Plus the right clients are busy and they don't have time to book unnecessary calls with you anyway. We've been using this model for the past six years or so now and we have yet to have a client take advantage of it.

If a client did start taking advantage of it, we'd just have a conversation with them to get things back on track. And if that didn't work, we'd just end the relationship. I can tell you though, it's not going to be the problem you might think it's going to be. Outside of those calls, our clients have unlimited email access to it.

Again, because we're so intentional about the monthly CFO calls and the mid-month calls, we just don't get flooded with emails too often. Between the CFO call, the mid-month call, and the availability of email and ad hoc calls, we found that this scope is typically more than enough to take care of our clients. and deliver tremendous value that gives the clients a very handsome ROI from working with.

Plus, that scope generally leaves the client feeling more than adequately supported. Now, all of that said, you may need to or want to add some additional things to your scope of work, and that's great. There are some things that we've added over the years that our clients have loved, and there are some other things that other firms have added that have worked out great for them as well. One of the things that we like to offer from time to time is attending EOS meetings.

You might agree to attend L10 meetings, quarterly meetings, or annual EOS meetings. Now, if you're not familiar with EOS, they're basically strategic planning meetings where the client sets goals and action items for the upcoming quarter or year. And so I think you can see why having a fractional CFO attend those meetings could be hugely valuable to a client. Now you might have clients that are in acquisition mode.

So your scope might include helping them conduct due diligence, evaluating acquisition targets, or even getting involved in the negotiations for MA work. Other firms have included things like helping with capital raises as part of their scope of work. I've even seen some firms help with everything from securing bank loans to

uh putting together pitch decks to leading capital raise meetings with investors. It's really up to you. And there isn't a one size fits all option for every fractional CFO out there. It's really just based on a delicate balance that considers the client's needs.

The type of work you're qualified to do, but also the type of work that you're interested in doing. If you start getting into scopes of work that you're not passionate about or even interested in, you're gonna burn out and tap out. If your clients need or require a scope of work that you're just not not qualified to do or that you're just not interested in doing, it's okay to say no.

Maybe you just aren't the right fractional CFO for them. And so it's okay to just walk away. I've learned time and time again that getting your onboarding and ongoing scope of work dialed in really is one of the key elements to creating a fractional CFO firm that adds maximum value for your clients. While also creating the space and predictability you need to scale. But it doesn't matter what your scope of work is, if your monthly CFO report isn't good enough,

Your clients won't stick around very long. If you want to learn how to level up your CFO calls, then check out the episode in the description below where I share some pro tips on how to make your CFO calls stand out and while your clients.

All right, my friends, I hope you found this episode helpful. If you did, it would mean the world to me if you would leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening to this episode. In the meantime, I can't wait to see you back right here next week. I'll see you then.