Virtual CFO for Professional Services in Sydney

Your numbers in 90 days. Fixed scope, fixed price, then it stops.

Professional services firms run on people and time, and the cash story lives in numbers most owners never watch: utilisation, realisation, and lock-up.

Strong fee revenue, and a bank balance that lags because work goes out the door faster than it gets billed and paid. The 90-Day Number builds the forward view and hands it over on day 90.
See if you're a fitBook a 30-min intro
Senior finance for $2m-$15m Sydney businesses. The work is led by Chartered Accountants, with experience across public, private, and owner-led businesses.

Every virtual CFO sells a retainer. We sell a deliverable.

$17,850

+ GST
That is $5,950 a month for three months, then it stops. Fixed. No retainer pressure after day 90.
what's included

Four deliverables. Two modules. One fixed price.

Everything that lands in your hands by day 90, built around how a professional services firm actually runs. No more, no less. Scope-creep proof.
1
A simple 13-week cashflow model
Tied to WIP, debtors, and milestone billing, where cash hides in a fee-based firm. Five minutes every Monday and you know what is in the bank across the quarter, not just at month end.
2
Three KPIs that drive the week
Usually utilisation, realisation, and lock-up days, set to your firm. The three numbers your operating week runs on, reviewed every Friday, not a thirty-metric dashboard.
3
A 12-month budget
The plan you run the year by, with revenue per head and the next fee-earner costed against the run rate. Assumptions you can defend to partners or a bank. Updated monthly, not filed once.
4
A one-page board readout you want to read
Revenue, margin, cash, KPIs, headcount, on a single page. The page you would hand a partner group, a bank, or yourself in twelve months. No eighty-slide pageantry.
5
Headcount & Capacity Planning
Maps your hiring plan to revenue, cash, and output. Whether utilisation and pipeline support the next fee-earner, and what they need to bill to pay for themselves. Trigger logic for when you hire.
6
Margin & Pricing
Gross margin by client, engagement, and service line, plus a rate card that reflects real cost. Scoping and pricing scenarios modelled. The numbers that tell you whether you have a real business or a busy one.
who it's for

Built for $2M to $15M professional services firms past instinct, short of a CFO.

Three profiles where the 90-Day Number consistently lands here.

The consulting or advisory firm.

You run a management, strategy, or advisory firm on billable people and time.

Fee revenue around $8M, the work is strong, but utilisation sits in the low sixties and realisation slips on writeoffs.

Profitable, with cash that never quite matches the billings because nobody watches lock-up.

The omnichannel or wholesale brand.

You run a structural, civil, or services engineering firm billing on milestones and deliverables.

Fee revenue $5M to $8M, with cash tied up in WIP and lock-up past 90 days, because work is delivered well before it is claimed and paid.

The forward view is the part nobody owns.

The partner-led firm professionalising.

You have scaled a partner-led or multi-discipline firm past $5M, adding fee-earners on instinct.

The books blur partner drawings with real profit, and lock-up has crept up unnoticed. You are profitable, and you still cannot say cleanly by how much, or what each partner contributes.

why owners pick this

Why professional services firms pick this over an indefinite retainer.

Four reasons the structure of the 90-Day Number works where the standard virtual CFO retainer does not.
A 90-day decision point
The standard offer is an open-ended retainer at $4K to $8K a month with no end date. You sign on in March, cannot tell if it is working by July, feel awkward cancelling by September. This ends on day 90 by design. You decide what is next: continue, project work, or wrap with the four deliverables.
One fixed price, on the page
$5,950 a month for three months. $17,850 total, fixed. Not "from $X", not "$300 an hour", not "scoped after a discovery call". You price your range to a margin and a landed cost. You should expect a CFO to price their own work.
One named CFO, every week
Same person on day one, day forty-five, day ninety. Not a roster, not an account manager between you and the senior. You meet your CFO on the intro call and they run the engagement. Founder-direct, no layers.
Four documents, not eighty slides
We hand over the cashflow model, the three KPIs, the budget, and the one-page board readout. If it does not fit in those four documents, it is not strategic finance. It is theatre.
If your virtual CFO can't tell you the deliverable on day 90, you don't have a virtual CFO. You have a retainer.
how to start

Four weeks to a finance function. Twelve more to operate it.

Book a 30-minute intro. We talk through your stage, your numbers, and what you are trying to work out. We can meet in person around Sydney, or over a call.

If the 90-Day Number is a fit, we send a scoping doc within 48 hours and start the following Monday.

The diagnostic lands at the end of week one. The model is working by week four. The board readout is in your hands on day 90.
Book a 30-min intro

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Frequently Asked Questions

The questions founders ask before signing. Plain-English answers.
Do you work with consulting, advisory, and engineering firms?
Yes, they are a core part of the work. The pattern repeats across Sydney professional services firms between $2M and $15M: strong fee revenue, and a bank balance that lags because utilisation, realisation, and lock-up are never watched closely. That forward view, sitting on top of clean books, is exactly what a virtual CFO builds.
What KPIs make sense for a professional services firm?
Usually utilisation, realisation, and lock-up days, though we set them to your firm in week one. The test is three numbers that move revenue, margin, or cash, reviewed every Friday, not a thirty-metric dashboard nobody opens.
What does $17,850 +GST buy a professional services firm?
Three months of senior virtual CFO work and four named deliverables: a 13-week cashflow model, three KPIs, a 12-month budget, and a one-page board readout. Plus two modules, headcount and capacity, and margin and pricing. Fixed price, billed as three monthly payments of $5,950, then it stops.
How is this different from my accountant?
Your accountant handles the backward view: tax, structuring, compliance, year-end. We handle the forward view: cashflow, budget, KPIs, the decisions in front of you this quarter. Most firms need both. We work alongside your accountant, not instead of them.
Our cash lags our billings because of lock-up. Can the model fix that?
Directly. Lock-up, the work you have done but not yet billed or collected, is the single most common reason a profitable firm feels cash-poor. We measure it, build it into the 13-week cashflow, and set it as one of your KPIs so it stops drifting upward unnoticed.
We bill on milestones and WIP. Can a 13-week cashflow handle that?
That is the case it is built for. For a milestone-billed firm, cash sits in work delivered ahead of the claim and the payment. The 13-week model maps WIP, billing, and debtor timing against payroll, so you see the gap between doing the work and getting paid for it before it bites.
How do you separate partner drawings from real profit?
This is one of the first things we untangle for a partner-led firm. We split partner drawings from operating profit in the budget and board readout, so you can finally see what the firm actually earns, distinct from what the partners take, and what each part of the business contributes.
We are hiring fee-earners. Can you tell us what utilisation we need to afford them?
Yes, that is the core of the headcount and capacity module. We cost the next fee-earner against your run rate and model the utilisation and billing they need to pay for themselves, so the hire is a quantified decision with a target, not a hopeful one.
How is this different from a virtual CFO for an agency?
The finance shape differs. A professional services firm runs on utilisation, realisation, and lock-up on fee-based work. An agency carries a project-plus-retainer mix, media and supplier pass-through, and lumpier project cash. We build the model to whichever you are. If you straddle both, we will tell you which lens fits in week one.
What happens after day 90?
You have the four deliverables and a working operating rhythm. We have a short conversation about what is next, with three honest options: continue on an optional monthly retainer with no lock-in, take on a scoped project, or wrap with the deliverables and stay in touch.
We have outgrown the bookkeeper but cannot justify a finance hire. Is this the in-between step?
Yes, that is the exact gap. A full-time finance lead at this stage is a $200K to $300K commitment with super, leave, and recruitment on top. This builds the layer that hire would own, hands it over documented, and leaves you running it for a fixed $17,850.
Is there a lock-in or minimum term?
No. The 90-Day Number is fixed at $17,850 +GST and ends on day 90. It does not auto-renew. If you continue afterwards, that is month to month with no lock-in either. You decide what is next, not a contract.
Pitt Street, Sydney
Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand Member
hello@sydneyvirtualcfo.com
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