If you’re looking for someone to manage your accounting staff, create financial reports, prevent or detect fraudulent activity, or handle audit compliance, you’ll benefit from hiring a fractional controller. People in this position are often more tactical, detail-oriented, and focused on historical data.

If you’re looking for someone to establish a financial strategy, manage investor relations, perform capital planning, and create budgets and forecasts, you’ll benefit from hiring a fractional CFO. People in this position are often more strategic, collaborative, forward-thinking, and focused on big-picture insights.

While your bookkeeper has expertise managing your books — entering and paying bills, reconciling accounts, etc. — they likely do not have the experience to interpret what those numbers mean for the next steps and future of your company. In addition, it’s best practice to have someone reviewing reports and managing your team from a higher level to make sure everything is in order.

Your CPA or accountant is focused more on making sure everything is accounted for when preparing your taxes. To give a practical example, a person in this role might add one entry at the end of the year to make sure certain expenses are accounted for in a particular fiscal year. While that gets the job done for the IRS, a fractional controller or CFO will need to see where those expenses fell throughout the year, how cash flow was impacted, and what business decisions you might make in the future based on that data.

A CPA or accountant is focused more on month-end or year-end, while a fractional controller or CFO is focused more on real-time data and decision-making.