Fractional CFO for Professional Services
Professional-services firms — agencies, consultancies, engineering and design shops, and other expertise businesses — sell time and judgment, which makes their economics deceptively tricky. A fractional CFO who understands the real economics — and can fix the systems feeding your numbers, too.
How a fractional CFO sharpens a professional-services firm
Professional-services firms — agencies, consultancies, engineering and design shops, and other expertise businesses — sell time and judgment, which makes their economics deceptively tricky. Utilization, realization, and project profitability drive everything, yet most firms manage them by feel and only find out a project lost money after it is delivered.
A bookkeeper records what happened. A fractional CFO tells you what it means and what to do next — and for professional services businesses, that judgment is the difference between scaling on purpose and scaling into a wall.
What I own for professional services businesses.
The specific finance work that moves the needle in this industry — not a generic CFO checklist.
01 Utilization & billable rates
Utilization, realization, and effective billable rates measured properly, so capacity and pricing decisions are grounded in real numbers.
02 Project & client profitability
Profitability by project, client, and service line — the view that tells you which work to chase and which to reprice or drop.
03 Services revenue recognition
Revenue recognized correctly across fixed-fee, time-and-materials, and retainer work, with WIP and unbilled handled cleanly.
04 Cash & working capital
Billing cadence, WIP, and receivables managed so the gap between delivering work and getting paid stops straining cash.
05 Partner & team comp
Compensation, profit-sharing, and headcount models that align what the firm pays with what it actually earns.
Real operating experience in this world.
Services economics run through everything I do. My SaaS work is heavy on services-revenue recognition, utilization, and headcount-driven forecasting, and my CFO and controller roles have repeatedly meant modelling project profitability and the people cost behind it. I know how to make a time-and-expertise business legible to its owners.
Most fractional CFOs can’t fix the software feeding your books. I can.
And because I also run a financial-systems practice, I can connect the tools you bill and track time in to your accounting system, so utilization and project-profitability reporting comes from clean data rather than three exports stapled together each month.
That second service line — Financial Systems Architecture — is what makes the CFO work stick in a services firm: when time, billing, and the GL actually agree, utilization and project profitability become numbers you can trust rather than argue about.
Professional Services CFO support across the region.
Same industry expertise, delivered in person in your market.
Hamilton
Professional Services CFO support in Hamilton.
Professional ServicesBurlington
Professional Services CFO support in Burlington.
Professional ServicesOakville
Professional Services CFO support in Oakville.
Professional ServicesNiagara & St. Catharines
Professional Services CFO support in Niagara.
Professional ServicesGrimsby
Professional Services CFO support in Grimsby.
Professional ServicesLondon, Ontario
Professional Services CFO support in London.
Who you’re actually working with.
Big Four-trained, operator-tested.
Steel City CFO is led by Kevin Cosgrove, whose background runs from high-growth SaaS to a $50M+ construction and industrial group — exactly the range of finance problems this industry throws off.
- Series B/C SaaS — independent fractional CFO work for venture-backed software companies (US + Canada): 3-statement models, ARR forecasting, ASC 606, board reporting.
- Controller, $50M+ group — heavy-civil construction, asphalt, and real estate: WIP, covenants, multi-entity consolidation.
- Prior fractional CFO — startups and mid-market firms across Canada: forecasting, lender reporting, finance ops built from scratch.
- Sell-side M&A exit — led the finance workstream on a venture-backed company’s acquisition by a strategic buyer.
Big Four (PwC) trained. Hamilton-based, serving clients across the Golden Horseshoe in person.
Pricing built for professional services businesses.
A fixed-fee start, then a right-sized retainer.
The Diagnostic Audit. A focused review of your finances and the systems feeding them, with quantified findings and a clear recommendation. No retainer, no open meter — you get the map first.
See how the audit worksA right-sized monthly retainer once the foundation is clean: forecasting, reporting, lender and board support, and an operating rhythm you can run the business on. Scope and price scale to your size.
Book a CallNeed a fractional CFO for your professional services business?
Book a call. We’ll pinpoint where your numbers are costing you and whether the $750 + HST Diagnostic Audit is the right place to start.