Growth is absorbing your cash
Revenue is rising, but the bank balance tells a different story. Understand collections, hiring, stock, delivery costs and the funding that growth requires.
Fractional CFO services | UK businesses
Work with a senior finance partner on cash, growth, funding and board decisions, with a defined scope and practical follow-through.
Consult EFC provides partner-led fractional CFO support for founders, management teams and business owners. Senior financial thinking, practical follow-through and a clear view across growth, funding and the next stage of your business.
From numbers to next steps
A working relationship, built around your priorities.
When the questions get bigger
You may already have good accountants and committed people. The gap is often the connection between the numbers, the commercial plan and the decisions only management can make.
Revenue is rising, but the bank balance tells a different story. Understand collections, hiring, stock, delivery costs and the funding that growth requires.
Forecasts drift away from reality. You need someone to challenge assumptions, set priorities and help the team respond before an issue becomes urgent.
A board, lender, investor or buyer wants a clearer explanation. Bring the evidence, risks and financial implications into one coherent view.
The role in practice
A fractional CFO helps set the financial agenda and keeps it connected to the operating plan. We agree what you need us to own, where we advise and what remains with your team.
Review cash forecasts, working capital, funding commitments and downside scenarios. Make the next funding requirement visible early enough to act.
Assess pricing, product or customer profitability, hiring, investment and growth options. Put the financial trade-offs alongside the commercial case.
Build a useful management and board reporting rhythm. Explain what moved, why it moved and which actions follow.
Connect budgets, forecasts and strategic priorities. Agree the owners of important assumptions and track actions through the management cycle.
Prepare the numbers and narrative for management, board, lender or investor discussions. Support questions with traceable evidence.
Work with your accountant, bookkeeper and internal team. Clarify responsibilities, improve handovers and identify where additional capability is needed.
Start with your priority
Select a priority to see how the discussion can turn into a practical workstream. These are examples, rather than promised outcomes.
Bring the opening cash position, expected receipts, payments and commitments together. Review scenarios, agree the near-term decisions and assign ownership of the forecast.
A rhythm your team can use
The value comes from the decisions and follow-through around the numbers.
We agree a working rhythm that fits the pace of your business. Urgent cash management, a stable monthly reporting cycle and a live fundraise need different levels of attention.
Outputs should lead to a conversation, an owner and a next step. A dashboard without those connections rarely changes how a business operates.
Review cash, immediate trading movements and decisions that cannot wait for month-end.
Explain actual performance, update the forecast and review financial priorities with management.
Challenge budgets, funding plans, investments and transaction readiness as the business changes.
The frequency and deliverables are agreed in your engagement. These are examples of a working cadence.
The right support for the need
| Support | Main focus | A useful question |
|---|---|---|
| Accountant / bookkeeper | Records, accounts, tax and compliance within their agreed scope. | Are the records and obligations being handled properly? |
| FP&A | Forecasts, budgets, analysis and performance reporting. | What is driving the result and what changes the plan? |
| Fractional CFO | Senior financial leadership, judgement and decision support. | What should we prioritise, and who owns the financial agenda? |
| Full-time CFO | Dedicated executive capacity and wider day-to-day ownership. | Does the business need a full-time finance leader now? |
There is overlap between roles. We define the responsibilities around your people and requirements, rather than replace a capable accountant or sell every service at once.
Explore FP&A support · Explore a financial modelling project · Improve the finance function
Built around the business model
Connect customer adoption, pricing and retention to delivery costs, implementation, compute, data and support. Understand the difference between growth in activity, recognised revenue, contribution and cash.
Funding and hiring decisions should reflect those economics. The same growth target can create a very different cash requirement depending on contract terms and delivery intensity.
Service capacity, project margins, customer concentration, inventory and payment cycles may matter more than subscription metrics. We start with how your business creates value and earns money.
Whether you are scaling, stabilising or preparing for a transaction, the financial work should fit that decision and your team’s ability to act on it.
A clearer brief. Practical outputs.
Review the business model, accounts, cash, commitments, forecasts and upcoming decisions. Agree the priorities, responsibilities and information gaps.
Put the agreed cash view, reporting pack, performance measures and action log in place. Connect operational owners with the financial assumptions they influence.
Use the evidence to test hiring, investment, pricing and funding choices. Review the scope and ongoing cadence as the business and decision timetable change.
Illustrative engagement sequence, not a guaranteed delivery timetable. Actual milestones depend on the brief, records, access and team capacity.
Performance against plan, the cash outlook, working-capital movements, relevant commercial metrics, downside scenarios and a short list of decisions with owners and dates. The purpose is a better management conversation, not a longer report.
Choose the engagement around the need: a defined diagnostic, a specific funding or planning project, or ongoing fractional leadership. We agree outputs, time commitment, meeting cadence, responsibilities and fee before starting. Urgent work and additional scope need a separate agreement.
Day-to-day bookkeeping and statutory accounts remain with the agreed finance team or accountant unless explicitly included. For closer ownership of reporting and the finance function, compare fractional FD support ↗. For a standalone workbook, explore financial modelling ↗.
A useful starting point
Start with the decisions that keep landing back on your desk.
Our free assessment helps organise questions about cash visibility, reporting, planning and finance leadership. It is a planning aid, rather than a professional diagnosis.
Get an immediate result and a practical action plan. No email is required to view the result.
Try the CFO needs assessment ↗A fractional CFO is a part-time finance leader who helps management make decisions about cash, investment and growth. It can be a fit when your accounts are being produced reliably, but nobody owns the forecast, challenges major commitments or explains the trade-offs to the board.
If sales are growing but payroll or supplier payments feel tighter, start by reconciling the forecast to the bank and identifying the weeks when cash could fall short. Agree which decisions management can make now and what would trigger a change of plan.
Turn the reporting pack into a decision paper. Show what moved against plan, why it moved, whether it is likely to recur and who owns the response. A finance team can keep producing the numbers while the CFO helps management decide what to do with them.
If the only immediate need is a forecast, a lender model or a controls review, scope that work separately. Ongoing CFO support makes more sense when someone needs to own the recurring decisions and keep the work moving.
Bring one decision, its deadline and the latest management accounts. That gives us enough context to discuss what kind of support fits.
Your questions
A fractional CFO provides senior financial leadership for an agreed part of the week or month, rather than joining as a full-time employee. The role connects financial reporting, cash, planning, commercial decisions and stakeholder conversations. The responsibilities, access and time commitment are agreed for your business.
Your accountant may handle bookkeeping, statutory accounts, tax and compliance, depending on their engagement. A fractional CFO works with management on forward-looking decisions, financial priorities and accountability. The roles can complement each other; we agree responsibilities with your existing accountant and finance team.
Choose CFO support when you need senior ownership of the financial agenda and someone to challenge decisions. Choose FP&A when the main need is recurring analysis, forecasts and performance reporting. A financial modelling project builds a defined decision tool. We can combine them, with a clear scope for each.
Yes. We can connect usage or subscription revenue to delivery costs, compute and data spend, customer economics, hiring and funding needs. We also work with established SMEs and other sectors. The metrics should follow the way your business actually earns money and uses cash.
Fees depend on the responsibilities, complexity, time commitment and support required. We agree the scope, deliverables, fee, VAT treatment, availability and review arrangements before work starts. Initial clean-up, transaction work or specialist assignments may need a separate scope.
There is no right number for every business. A stable reporting and planning cycle requires a different level of support from a funding round, cash challenge or acquisition. We discuss your priorities, team capacity and decision calendar, then agree a practical level of involvement.
We establish the financial position, current information, urgent decisions and responsibilities. Then we agree a prioritised action plan and reporting rhythm. Timing depends on data readiness and team availability. Where urgent cash issues exist, these take priority over a wider reporting redesign.
Board, management, lender and investor support can form part of the agreed engagement. We help explain the financial evidence, challenge assumptions and prepare for questions. Management and directors retain their own responsibilities, and funding or transaction outcomes cannot be guaranteed.
Engagements are led by Kishen Patel, founder of Consult EFC and an ICAEW Chartered Accountant with a background in Big Four audit, investment banking and corporate advisory. We agree who is involved and where specialist support is required before starting.
Yes. We review priorities and capacity as the business changes. The role can support your existing finance team, help prepare for a future in-house hire or move into a more focused project. Changes to scope, availability and fees are agreed rather than assumed.
Yes, we can discuss a diagnostic or specific cash, planning or funding brief. We agree deliverables and fee first, then assess whether ongoing fractional leadership is appropriate.
The agreed responsibilities, time commitment, meeting cadence, complexity, finance-team capacity and transaction demands affect scope and fee. We confirm what is included and how additional work is handled before starting.
Work directly with the adviser
Tell us what is changing in your business and which financial decisions need better support.
Kishen Patel leads Consult EFC engagements, drawing on his ICAEW Chartered Accountant qualification and experience across Big Four audit, investment banking and corporate advisory.
We agree the scope, responsibilities, fee and timing before work starts. An introductory call does not commit you to an engagement.