Big decisions, two tax systems, and nobody reading the numbers.
You have someone recording what happened and someone filing it after the fact. What you do not have is a person sitting between them, telling you what the next twelve months cost you on each side of the border, before you commit to anything.
- The close gets reviewed, not just delivered
- A rolling forecast in both currencies
- A standing monthly session
- Cross-border position held year-round
- Support in the room for the big calls
When this is the right rung
Three situations that put an owner in this conversation
Most owners do not go looking for a fractional CFO. They hit one of these three and realise nobody in the building can answer the question.
You are about to do something structural
Incorporating on the other side. Moving where the work is invoiced from. Taking on your first real US customer base as a Canadian company, or the reverse. These decisions set your tax position for years, and they are cheapest to get right before they happen.
The numbers no longer fit in your head
Two entities, intercompany balances, two currencies, and a bookkeeper on each side who cannot see the other. Nobody is consolidating it, so nobody can tell you what the group actually earned.
You need a finance function, not a finance hire
The work is real but it is not forty hours a week, and a full-time controller who understands both systems is expensive and hard to find. Fractional exists for exactly this gap.
If none of those three describes you, a fixed-fee filing engagement is almost certainly the right rung. Start at How Our Fees Work.
The engagement
What actually happens once you are working with us
Advisory is easy to sell and hard to pin down, so here is the shape of it in plain terms.
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The close gets reviewed, not just delivered
Your monthly close comes to us and someone reads it. Variances get questioned, intercompany gets reconciled, and the two sides get consolidated into one view instead of two sets of books that never meet.
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A rolling forecast in both currencies
Twelve months forward, updated monthly, with the US and Canadian sides visible separately and together. Currency is shown as marked, never blended into a single number that hides which side moved.
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A standing monthly session
A scheduled working session with the same person every month. Not a report emailed at you, a conversation about what the numbers mean for the decision in front of you.
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Cross-border position held year-round
Your filing position stops being a March problem. Treaty positions, entity structure and reporting obligations stay in view all year, so the return is a formality rather than a discovery process.
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Support in the room for the big calls
When you are talking to a bank, a lender, a lawyer or a buyer, you have someone who can speak to the numbers on both sides. What those parties decide is theirs to decide. We make sure the numbers you bring them are right and defensible.
An engagement covers finance leadership, reporting and cross-border planning. Where our service scope ends is set out plainly on our credential disclosure page, and it is worth two minutes of your time before you book.
Fees
Custom engagement, fixed fee, agreed before anything starts
Virtual CFO does not carry a published starting fee, and it would be dishonest to invent one. A two-entity group with intercompany activity and a founder taking distributions on both sides is not the same engagement as a single Ontario corporation with US customers, and no card on a page can tell the difference.
What is fixed is the process, which is identical to every other engagement here:
Scoping call
We map the entities, the two filing positions, the reporting you have today and the decisions coming in the next twelve months. Roughly forty minutes.
A written scope and a fixed monthly fee
You get the engagement in writing: what is in it, what is not, the cadence, and the number. In the currency it will be invoiced in.
Nothing changes without agreement
If the scope grows, we agree the change and the fee before any additional work begins. Never after the fact.
The mechanics behind that, including what moves a fee and what does not, are on How Our Fees Work.
Credentials
Who you are actually taking advice from
Our advisory is led by Chartered Financial Analysts. The CFA charter is a designation in investment analysis and financial judgment, which is precisely what a cross-border decision turns on: which country taxes what, in what order, and at what cost to you.
That matters more here than on any other page on this site. A filing engagement is judged on whether the return is correct. An advisory engagement is judged on whether the judgment was sound, months before anyone files anything.
On the filing side of the work, a tax consultant reviews every return, and returns are reviewed and signed off by a licensed practitioner of record.
The full credential position, including what we do and do not take on, is on our credential disclosure page.
Real, named people
The people you would be working with
Fractional finance leadership is a relationship with a person, not a service tier. You will know who before you commit to anything.
Meet the full team on About and Team.
Questions
What owners ask before they scope this
How is this different from having a good bookkeeper?
What does a Virtual CFO engagement cost?
Do I have to move my tax filing to you as well?
Is this a fixed-term commitment?
What will you not do?
Book a scoping call, not a sales call.
About forty minutes. We map your entities, both filing positions and what is coming in the next twelve months. You leave with a written scope and a fixed monthly fee, or with a straight answer that this is not the right rung for you yet.