Virtual CFO Redfern | Sydney Virtual CFO
A virtual CFO for Redfern founders in the South Eveleigh and Tech Central cluster: runway, hiring plans, and project cash for scaling startups and studios.
Redfern sits at the southern edge of Tech Central, with South Eveleigh next door anchoring one of the densest technology clusters in the country. The founders here ask three questions: how many months of cash remain at the current burn, what the next two hires really do to that number, and which week the cash bottoms out over the next quarter. A virtual CFO engagement, scoped as the 90-Day Number [→ 90-Day Number page], answers all three with a model the founder can run, not a guess.
Published: July 2026
Redfern's business character is shaped by its position inside Tech Central, the NSW Government's six square kilometre innovation precinct bordered by Haymarket, Camperdown and South Eveleigh, which holds Australia's highest density of venture capital and its strongest concentration of technology businesses, alongside 150 research institutes and two universities. Immediately south of Redfern station, South Eveleigh, the former Australian Technology Park, anchors the local end of the precinct with technology tenants, research spin-outs and the venture firms that fund them. Around that anchor sits a spread of scaling software businesses, product studios, and technology-adjacent services firms.
The overlap with Surry Hills [→ Surry Hills suburb page], one postcode north, is real and worth acknowledging rather than papering over: the precinct's own boundary takes in both. The difference is the mix. Redfern and South Eveleigh lean toward product and engineering tenants tied to the Eveleigh anchor, where Surry Hills leans agency and creative services. This page is written to the Redfern founder, typically a software or studio business between $2M and $8M revenue [→ SaaS industry page], often spending ahead of revenue with a raise somewhere on the horizon.
Runway is cash divided by net monthly burn, and most founders can quote a number. The problem is the number is usually a straight-line average, and cash does not leave a business in a straight line. Annual insurance renewals, quarterly BAS, and the timing gap between payroll going out and receipts coming in all put lumps in the line. A founder carrying a straight-line "11 months" can be carrying a real nine and a half, and the gap only becomes visible in the week the lump lands. Guessing the runway is how founders discover, too late, that they had two months less than they thought.
The useful version of the number is built from the actual cash position, the actual payment calendar, and the booked pipeline, then stress-tested: what does runway become if the biggest customer pays 30 days late, if the raise slips a quarter, if the two planned hires start on schedule.
Not the salary. The fully loaded cost. Superannuation now runs at 12 per cent of ordinary time earnings, the final legislated rate, and from 1 July 2026 Payday Super means it leaves your bank account on every pay run rather than accruing to a quarterly payment. Add workers compensation, recruitment, equipment and software seats, and a $240,000 pair of salaries is a loaded cost closer to $290,000 in year one, before counting the ramp months where the hires cost full rate and produce partial output.
The loaded figure matters less for the runway arithmetic, where it moves the answer by weeks, and more for what it feeds: the hiring plan in the raise model, the board conversation, and the honesty of the revenue assumptions attached to the hires. Which is the third question.
The 13-week low point is the specific week and dollar figure at which cash touches its floor over the next quarter. It is the number that decides whether a hire or a spend is safe now or should wait, and it does not appear on a monthly view. A month can look fine on average while week two of it dips hard, because payroll, rent and an insurance renewal all land before the month's biggest receipt does. A 13-week cashflow forecast [→ 13-week cashflow service page] exists to surface exactly that week, early enough to move something.
A Redfern software business at $3M revenue holds $1.65M in cash and burns a net $150,000 a month. Straight-line runway: 11 months. The founder plans two hires, a senior engineer and a product designer, combined salaries of $240,000, starting in month four, with a Series A conversation pencilled for early next year.
The model prices the decision properly. Loaded cost of the pair is about $290,000 a year, roughly $24,000 a month on the burn. Started in month four, the hires bring runway in from 11 months to about ten. Six weeks of runway is the true price of the decision, and stated that way it is a price most founders will happily pay, if the assumption underneath it holds.
That assumption is the real finding. The hires exist to ship the roadmap that supports the raise. The scenario build shows that if the pipeline they unlock lands one quarter late, burn stays elevated against flat revenue and the six weeks stretches toward three months, which is the difference between opening the raise with ten months of cash and opening it with seven. One of those founders negotiates from strength. The other negotiates from need, and the term sheet reflects it. The weekly view adds the last piece: a week-nine dip of $130,000 below the founder's comfort line, driven by two pay runs and an insurance renewal landing four days before the quarter's largest customer payment. Nothing dangerous, but exactly the kind of week a slipped receipt turns into a real problem, and exactly the kind of week worth knowing about ten weeks in advance.
None of this required more data than the business already had. It required the model.
For a Redfern founder the natural deliverable is a runway and hiring-plan model paired with a 13-week cashflow forecast, so the two decisions that dominate this cluster are answered together and stay answered as the inputs change. Where a raise is inside a year, the same build feeds a fundraise-ready financial model [→ fundraise-ready model service page], with the hiring plan and revenue assumptions already stress-tested rather than assembled in the fortnight before the first partner meeting. For the founders here who are profitable and not raising, the deliverable shifts to the margin and cash view that suits a services or studio business instead. One named deliverable, agreed on day one.
The engagement is scoped, fixed and finite. We agree the deliverable that answers your most expensive question, build it across the ninety days on top of your existing actuals, and hand it over with a working session so you can run it yourself afterwards. On day 90 you own the model. Some founders move to a light periodic check-in, some run the year on the model alone, and some come back later for a separate build. All three are correct outcomes, and none happens by default. There is no auto-renewal and no open-ended retainer.
The commercial terms are fixed: $17,850 plus GST, paid in three instalments of $5,950, one named deliverable by day 90. Most Australian virtual CFO work is sold the other way, as an open-ended monthly retainer typically in the $3,000 to $8,000 per month band with no named deliverable and no end date. Project-based virtual CFO work is rare in this market. We think the reasons most firms avoid it, the scoping is harder and the founder gets to leave at day 90, are also the reasons it is the better product.
If the raise question is the live one, the guide on whether you need a CFO before Series A [→ related article: Do I Need a CFO Before Series A?] covers the decision in full.
If you already have a bookkeeper, keep them. This work sits on the decision layer, on top of clean actuals; it does not replace reconciliation, payroll or compliance. If the ledger is not trustworthy, fix the ledger first, then build the forward view, because a runway model built on bad actuals is theatre. And if the business is under $2M revenue, the 90-Day Number is usually the wrong spend at this stage; run a simple cash tracker and revisit once the decisions get expensive enough to justify the build.
Founders a suburb over face the same shape of problem with different textures: the agency cluster in Surry Hills, the project-revenue businesses in Darlinghurst [→ Darlinghurst suburb page], and the design and product firms around Alexandria [→ Alexandria suburb page] and Rosebery [→ Rosebery suburb page]. The deliverable that fits is the one that answers the question that is actually expensive right now.
What is runway and how precisely can you model it?
Runway is the number of months your cash lasts at the current burn. A virtual CFO models it from your actual cash position, payment calendar and booked pipeline rather than a straight-line average, then shows how it moves with each decision: a hire, a spend, a slipped receipt, a delayed raise. The value is not the single number but seeing how your choices move it before you commit to them.
How much does the next hire really cost?
More than the salary. The fully loaded cost includes superannuation at 12 per cent, workers compensation, recruitment, equipment, and the ramp months before the hire is productive, and since 1 July 2026 the super component hits cash on every pay run under Payday Super. A $240,000 pair of salaries is a loaded cost closer to $290,000 in year one. The model sets that against your runway so the decision is priced in weeks of cash, not just dollars of salary.
Is Redfern's finance work the same as Surry Hills?
The core questions, runway, hiring, quarterly cash, are shared across the Tech Central cluster, and the precinct boundary takes in both suburbs. The difference is the mix: Redfern and South Eveleigh lean toward product and engineering businesses tied to the Eveleigh anchor, where Surry Hills leans agency. The model is built to the founder in front of us, not copied across a postcode line.
We are pre-Series A. Is it too early for a virtual CFO?
Often it is exactly the right time, because runway and hiring decisions are most consequential before a raise, and a raise opened with a stress-tested model reads very differently to one assembled in the final fortnight. The engagement is fixed scope, so it is sized to what you need now rather than an ongoing cost, and it feeds directly into the fundraise model when you are ready.
We are profitable and not raising. Is this still relevant?
Yes. The raise framing dominates this postcode but the build works the same for a profitable studio or services business: the deliverable shifts to cashflow, margin and the true cost of the next hires, so growth decisions are made against a forward view rather than last quarter's P&L.
Do you replace our bookkeeper?
No. The CFO work sits on top of your bookkeeping. Your bookkeeper keeps the records; the virtual CFO turns them into runway, hiring and cash decisions. If the records are not clean, fixing them comes first.
What does it cost?
The 90-Day Number is a fixed $17,850 plus GST for one named deliverable by day 90, paid in three instalments of $5,950. There is no retainer and no "from" pricing. The common Australian alternative is an open-ended monthly retainer at $3,000 to $8,000; the project-based model is deliberately different and uncommon here.
What happens after ninety days?
You keep the model and run it yourself; the final working session exists for exactly that. Some founders move to a light periodic check-in, some run the year alone, and some come back later for a separate deliverable, a fundraise model being the common one here. There is no default roll-on.
Sydney Virtual CFO is a Sydney-based virtual CFO service for founders running $2M to $15M businesses across SaaS, ecommerce, professional services, construction, and other low-volume, high-value industries. We deliver fixed-scope CFO engagements with a named deliverable on day 90: a 13-week cashflow forecast, a fundraise-ready financial model, a unit economics build, or a board reporting pack you can run on your own.
Our front-door product, the 90-Day Number, is fixed scope at $17,850 plus GST. We are one of the few project-based virtual CFOs in Australia, in a market built almost entirely on monthly retainers. No retainers without a deliverable. No 80-page reports. No theatre.
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This content is general information only, written for Australian founders running businesses in the $2M to $15M revenue range. It does not constitute tax, financial product, investment, or legal advice and should not be relied on as such. The work referenced is led by a Chartered Accountant (CA ANZ), but Sydney Virtual CFO is not a licensed tax agent, not a licensed financial adviser, and not authorised to provide personal financial advice. Tax obligations, accounting treatments, fundraise terms, and statutory requirements depend on your individual circumstances. For advice specific to your business, contact the team directly or consult a registered tax agent, licensed financial adviser, or qualified lawyer. Information was current at the time of publication and may change without notice. We review and update guides periodically.
