Fractional virtual-CFO (v-CFO)

Profitable on paper. Nothing in the bank.

You've had a good year. The accounts say so. But the account balance doesn't match the profit figure, the tax bill caught you out again, and you couldn't tell anyone with confidence what your cash position will be in three months.

That's not a failure of discipline. Profit and cash are two different things, and nothing in standard annual accounts is designed to show you the gap between them. Your customers pay in 60 days while your staff get paid weekly. Stock and work in progress are cash you've already spent. Loan principal and drawings leave your bank account and never appear on your P&L at all.

Most owner-managed businesses have compliance covered and nothing looking forward. That's the gap I fill.

Who this is for

Business owners who've reached the point where instinct alone isn't enough to make the next set of decisions. You've outgrown what your accountant provides and you're years away from justifying a full-time CFO.

You're likely a good fit if:

  • You check the bank balance more often than you look at the P&L

  • Your management reporting arrives late, or not at all, or you don't fully trust it

  • You've been surprised by a tax bill more than once

  • You're planning growth, a funding conversation, or a significant hire and want to know whether the numbers support it

  • You're making decisions on instinct and would rather make them on instinct and evidence

What actually happens

Month 1 — Getting to the truth

I go through your accounts, your reporting, your bank facilities and your operations. I'll want to see the business, not just the ledger — walk the site, understand how the work moves, talk to whoever actually knows where things get stuck. We build your first 13-week rolling cash flow. You'll know your real position by the end of the month.

Month 2 — Building the instruments

Monthly reporting rebuilt so it answers your questions rather than the tax department's. A short set of measures that actually drive your business, not a dashboard of forty numbers nobody reads. Margin analysis by product, job or customer.

Month 3 onward — The rhythm.

A monthly meeting on the numbers and what they mean. Cash flow updated weekly. Quarterly forward-looking sessions. I'm available between meetings — when a decision comes up, you call.

What you get

  • A 13-week rolling cash flow forecast, maintained and updated

  • A one-page monthly report you can read in five minutes and understand fully

  • Margin analysis by product line, job type or customer

  • A short KPI set — usually five to eight measures — with a simple dashboard

  • Annual budget and rolling forecast

  • Board or shareholder reporting pack, if you need one

  • Bank and funding support: the numbers, the narrative, and the questions they'll ask

  • A monthly meeting, and a phone line between meetings

How it's priced

Fractional v-CFO support is an ongoing monthly arrangement, not a project. Pricing reflects the size and complexity of your business for example, the number of entities, sites, currencies, and the state of your current reporting — and is agreed up front as a fixed monthly fee, so there are no hourly surprises.

I ask for an initial six-month commitment, because the first three months are largely construction and it takes that long to be genuinely useful. After that it's month to month.

For context, a full-time CFO in New Zealand is a $200,000-plus commitment before you've hired anyone else. This is a fraction of that, and it scales as the business does.

If you'd rather test the relationship first, most people start with a Financial Health & Risk Review which comes at a fixed-fee, fixed-scope piece of work over two to three weeks.

Why me

I'm Rachel Southee, a chartered accountant and a process engineer. It's not a common pairing, and it's the reason I do this work. Most of my career has been spent doing exactly this job inside other people's businesses.

At Fisher & Paykel Appliances I was Senior Finance Partner to the global product development teams from running ROI analysis, sensitivity testing and scenario modelling alongside chief engineers to work out whether a product would actually pay for itself, and holding the financial controllership of the business unit, including presenting budgets and forecasts to executives.

At Bearing360, a startup shipping agency handling 70,000-plus TEU a year, I was the first finance hire and built the function from nothing covering systems, policies, reporting. I raised debt funding from shareholders on several occasions. And I redesigned the commercial model so it matched how the contracts actually worked, which lifted gross profitability by more than 20%.

At Oji Fibre Solutions I led a team of four delivering the strategy, governance and audit function for a business generating over $1.4b in revenue across New Zealand and Australia.

I also spent time at PwC doing annual compliance for SMEs, trusts and partnerships, which means I know precisely what your accountant does and doesn't do. I'm not neccessarily here to replace them. I'm here to do the part that nobody's currently doing.

Let’s Talk

Twenty minutes, no pitch, just a chat. Tell me what's bothering you and I'll tell you honestly whether I can help.