Virtual CFO for Wholesaler & Distibution in Sydney

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

Wholesale and distribution lives in the gap between paying suppliers early and getting paid by customers late, with cash trapped in stock the whole time. Profitable on paper, tight in the bank.

The 90-Day Number builds the forward view that maps the working-capital gap, 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 wholesale or distribution business actually runs. No more, no less. Scope-creep proof.
1
A simple 13-week cashflow model
Tied to stock buys, supplier terms, and debtor timing, the working-capital cycle a distributor actually runs on. Five minutes every Monday and you know what is in the bank across the quarter.
2
Three KPIs that drive the week
Usually gross margin, stock turn, and debtor days against supplier terms, set to your business. The three numbers your operating week runs on, reviewed every Friday.
3
A 12-month budget
The plan you run the year by, with the next stock buy, line, or customer costed against the run rate. Assumptions you can defend to a lender or yourself. Updated monthly, not filed once.
4
A one-page board readout you want to read
Revenue, margin, cash, stock, debtors, on a single page. The page you would hand a lender, an investor, or yourself in twelve months. No eighty-slide pageantry.
5
Headcount & Capacity Planning
Maps your buying and hiring plan to sales, cash, and output. Whether sales support the next stock order, or margin supports the next hire. Trigger logic for when you commit.
6
Margin & Pricing
Gross margin by product line and customer, after freight, FX, and rebates. Pricing and terms 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 wholesale and distribution owners past instinct, short of a CFO.

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

The importer or distributor.

You import and hold stock, then sell to retailers or trade. Revenue $8M to $12M on a thinner margin, with cash trapped between supplier terms you pay early, often before goods even land, and debtor terms your customers pay late.

The working-capital gap is the whole game.

The B2B wholesaler.

You sell to a base of trade or retail customers on account.

Revenue $5M to $10M, profitable, but a few large debtors carry real risk, and a slow payer or a bad debt can swing a comfortable quarter into a scramble for cash.

The growing distributor.

You are adding lines, customers, or a second warehouse, on a capable bookkeeper and instinct.

Every new line ties up more cash in stock, so growth keeps outrunning the bank balance, and you cannot say how much cash the next push will consume.

why owners pick this

Why wholesale and distribution owners 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 wholesalers, distributors, and importers?
Yes, they are a core part of the work. The pattern repeats across Sydney wholesale businesses between $2M and $15M: profitable on paper, with cash trapped in stock and in the gap between paying suppliers and being paid by customers. That forward view, mapping the working-capital cycle, is what a virtual CFO builds.
What KPIs make sense for a wholesale or distribution business?
Usually gross margin, stock turn, and debtor days against supplier terms, though we set them to your business in week one. The test is three numbers that move revenue, margin, or cash, reviewed every Friday, not a thirty-metric dashboard.
What does $17,850 +GST buy a wholesale business?
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 operators need both. We work alongside your accountant, not instead of them.
Our cash is trapped between supplier and customer terms. Can a 13-week cashflow handle that?
That is the case it is built for. You often pay suppliers, sometimes before goods land, well before customers pay you, and stock sits in between. The 13-week model maps stock buys, supplier terms, and debtor timing, so you can see the gap and fund it deliberately.
We import and carry FX and lead-time risk. Do you build that into the model?
Yes. Long lead times mean cash leaves months before stock sells, and FX moves the landed cost. We build lead times and a sensible FX assumption into the cashflow and the margin, so a shipment or a currency move does not surprise you.
How do you measure stock turn and how much cash our inventory ties up?
We track stock turn by line and quantify exactly how much cash is sitting in inventory at any point. That usually shows which lines fund the business and which slow movers are quietly tying up the cash you need elsewhere.
We are adding lines or a warehouse. Can you tell us what we can afford?
Yes, that is the core of the headcount and capacity module. We model the stock and overhead a new line or warehouse needs against your cash and sell-through, so the expansion is a quantified decision, not a hopeful one.
We carry debtor risk on a few large customers. Does the model flag that?
Yes. We track debtor days and concentration, so you can see how exposed you are to a single slow or large customer, and build that risk into the cashflow rather than discovering it when a big invoice goes unpaid.
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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