An outside advisor with 18 years in controller and CFO seats, brought in for the level of support your company actually needs right now.
At some point a growing company needs financial thinking that a bookkeeper isn't positioned to provide, but a full-time CFO is a serious salary for a business doing $8M. That's the gap this fills. You bring in the experience as an outside advisor, at the level and frequency the business needs, and you scale it up as the company grows rather than hiring ahead of the need.
Baum's Accounting Services brings 18 years on the inside of that role: five years in public accounting, five as a construction-company controller, and eight as a mortgage-bank CFO, anchored by founder Justin Baum's MBA in Accounting from Bellarmine. That's the depth clients are renting, whether the work is a monthly forecast review or sitting in on a bank meeting. Businesses in Lexington get on-site time when it helps, and companies in Louisville, London, and across Kentucky work the same engagement remotely. To be clear about the arrangement: a fractional CFO is an outside advisor you bring in, never an employee of your company.
Advisory work for companies that need a financial voice at the table for specific decisions, not just at year end.
Ongoing financial leadership at the hours your business needs, covering forecasting, capital decisions, margins, and the meetings where numbers get questioned.
Read moreThe bridge between bookkeeping and a CFO: monthly close oversight, reporting rigor, budgets versus actuals, cash-flow management, and controls that scale.
Read moreMulti-year projections tied to what you're actually planning to do, with the cash and capital requirements each scenario would demand.
Read moreLenders ask for specific documents in a specific form. Getting the package right the first time is usually the difference in the timeline.
Read moreWhat the business is worth and what's driving that number, whether the reason is a sale, a partner buyout, or planning ahead.
Read moreTurning where you want the company to go into a financial plan with the numbers, timing, and funding attached to each step.
Read moreFinancial statements, budgets, and reporting formatted to what the grantor requires, plus the tracking they'll expect afterward.
Read more
There's a level between bookkeeping and CFO work that most owners have never had explained to them, and it's often the one they actually need. A fractional controller owns the accounting function itself: making sure the close happens on time and correctly, that internal controls exist, that reconciliations are real, that the reporting package is accurate before anyone interprets it. A CFO looks forward at strategy, capital, and where the business is heading. A controller makes sure the numbers underneath that are trustworthy. Plenty of companies that think they need a CFO need a controller first, because forecasting off unreliable books just produces confident wrong answers.
The trigger is rarely a general desire for better financial management. It's specific. Revenue crossed $5M and the reporting that worked at $2M stopped working. A bank asked for projections and nobody in the building can build them. Margins are shrinking and nobody can say which part of the business is responsible. A partner wants out and there's no defensible number. Growth has been good but cash keeps getting tight, which is one of the most common and most misunderstood problems a profitable company runs into. Any of those is a reasonable moment to have a conversation about what level of support the business actually needs.
Depends on whether your problem is the quality of the numbers or what to do with them. If closes are late, reconciliations are shaky, or you don't trust the reports, start with controller work. If the books are solid and the questions are about forecasting, financing, margins, or growth, that's CFO territory. The first conversation sorts out which.
It varies by company size and what's going on. Some clients need a standing monthly review of results and forecast. Others need heavier involvement during a lending process or a major decision, then less afterward. The engagement is scoped to what the business needs and adjusts as that changes, rather than locking you into a fixed block of hours.
No. A fractional CFO or controller is an outside advisor you bring in, not an employee on your payroll. You get senior-level financial experience at the level of involvement your business needs, without the salary, benefits, and long-term commitment that come with hiring for the role full time.
Book a consultation. Half an hour is usually enough to know whether this is a fit.
Book a Consultation
