Frequently Asked Questions

Fractional means you get executive-level expertise — a CFO, a COO, or both — without the full-time salary commitment. We embed inside your business part-time, working on the strategic and operational challenges that require senior leadership. You get the impact of a C-suite hire at a fraction of the cost. Our engagements are 6–12 months minimum because that's how long it takes to genuinely transform a business's financial and operational infrastructure.

We work with SMBs in the $500K to $7M revenue range — businesses that have outgrown their accountant but aren't ready for full-time executive hires. This is the stage where the gap between financial strategy and operational execution is most dangerous, and where our integrated approach delivers the highest impact. We maintain a deliberately small client roster at any time to ensure deep, personal engagement.

After a discovery call, we can typically begin within 1–2 weeks for sprints and consulting engagements. Fractional and integrated engagements may take slightly longer to scope properly. We believe in starting right rather than starting fast — but we don't waste time.

Our flagship case study is a digital marketing agency (Qera Marketing), and we've built deep expertise in agency-specific challenges: cash flow timing, hiring velocity, delivery capacity, client concentration risk. But the operator skill set and BI platform translate across any growth-stage SMB in the $500K–$7M range. The underlying problems are the same: financial architecture that doesn't support growth, operational systems that break under scale.

Three things no competitor combines: (1) We're the only firm that embeds both a CFO and COO as an integrated team — led by a husband-wife duo with identical incentives. (2) We've built a proprietary BI platform spanning both financial and operational data — no other boutique fractional firm has anything comparable. (3) We're operators, not accountants or consultants. We've managed $100M in capital and led 500+ person organizations. We don't advise. We build.

A Strategic Sprint is a single-project, time-boxed engagement with a defined scope and deliverable — build a cash flow forecast, design an ops playbook, implement a KPI dashboard. There's no ongoing commitment. A fractional retainer (CFO, COO, or Integrated) is an ongoing embedded engagement, minimum 6–12 months, where we function as your executive team. Sprints are the on-ramp. Retainers are the destination.

Not necessarily — and not right away. If your biggest gap is financial, start with our Fractional CFO. If it's operational, start with our Fractional COO. But in our experience, businesses at $500K–$7M usually need both. A CFO without a COO produces plans that don't get executed. A COO without a CFO builds teams on a financially unsound foundation. The integrated engagement delivers outsized returns because strategy and execution are never out of sync. Start where you are — the path to integrated is always open.

No — and here's why that's good news. A CPA is trained to minimize taxes and report the past. A CFO is trained to allocate capital, build financial models, and make forward-looking decisions. Those are completely different skill sets. Matt's background is managing a $100 million defense portfolio and an MS in Aerospace Engineering — he's trained to model complex systems and allocate capital under constraints. You absolutely need a CPA for tax compliance. Every client of ours has one. We work alongside your CPA — we handle financial strategy and BI infrastructure; they handle tax and compliance. CPAs look back. We look forward.

Clean data is the foundation. If your books aren't in order, strategic CFO and COO work can't begin effectively. We offer bookkeeping as a supporting service when data quality is the prerequisite — not as a standalone product. Think of it as the bridge that makes everything else possible. Once the data is clean, the BI platform, the financial models, and the operational dashboards all become accurate and actionable.

Consulting is a flexible, longer-term advisory relationship. It's broader in scope than a sprint but less structured than a fractional retainer. You get access to Matt on the financial side, Kylie on the operational side, or both — on a cadence that fits your business. It's ideal for founders who need a strategic thinking partner, clients transitioning between engagement tiers, or businesses that have completed a sprint and want ongoing access before committing to a full fractional engagement.