Owners often conflate three roles. Getting the wrong one is expensive in both directions: a controller cannot run a lender negotiation, and a full-time chief financial officer (CFO) will be bored and overpaid reconciling accounts.
The three roles
Controller
- Owns the accuracy and timeliness of the books
- Runs month-end close, reconciliations, accounts payable and receivable oversight
- Manages the bookkeeping team and the accounting system
- Backward-looking by design: reports what happened
Full-time CFO
- Owns strategy, capital, and the forward view
- Sits on the leadership team daily
- Runs finance, and often legal, HR, and IT by default
- Appropriate when the business generates enough decisions to fill the role every week
Part-time CFO
- Same scope as a full-time CFO, sized to the decision volume
- Typically 2 to 8 days per month
- Works alongside an existing bookkeeper or controller
- Scales up or down with complexity
Cost, honestly stated
Compensation varies by market. Rather than quote figures that will be stale in a year, compare the structure:
- Controller: one salary plus benefits and payroll tax. Fully loaded cost is roughly 1.25 to 1.4 times base.
- Full-time CFO: the highest salary in the finance function, plus benefits, plus typically equity or bonus. Fully loaded cost often runs 1.3 to 1.5 times base. Recruiting fees and a 90-day ramp add to year-one cost.
- Part-time CFO: a monthly retainer, no benefits, no equity, no recruiting fee. Cost is usually a fraction of a full-time hire and starts producing output in the first month.
Confirm current market ranges with a recruiter or compensation survey for your region.
Scope comparison
| Task | Controller | Part-time CFO | Full-time CFO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Month-end close | Owns | Reviews | Reviews |
| 13-week cash forecast | Sometimes | Owns | Owns |
| Annual budget and reforecast | Supports | Owns | Owns |
| Lender and investor relations | No | Owns | Owns |
| Pricing and margin policy | No | Owns | Owns |
| Systems selection and controls | Supports | Owns | Owns |
| Daily leadership-team presence | No | Scheduled | Yes |
| Managing a finance team of 5+ | Yes | Advises | Yes |
A worked example
An $8M health-tech company, 45 staff, venture-backed, two entities. Options:
- Controller only: books are clean, but nobody prepares the board package or manages the runway conversation. The CEO does it, badly, the night before each board meeting.
- Full-time CFO only: the CFO spends 60% of the week on close and reconciliations because there is no controller. Expensive work done by an expensive person.
- Controller plus part-time CFO: controller closes in five days; CFO spends four days per month on the forecast, board package, and the Series A data room. Combined cost is below a single full-time CFO.
The third option is the common answer between roughly $3M and $25M in revenue.
When full-time is right
- Weekly decision volume genuinely fills the calendar
- An active fundraising or merger process needs daily attention for months
- The finance team exceeds five people and needs a manager present
- Investors or the board require it as a condition
What to do this quarter
- Write down the finance tasks nobody owns today. Sort them into backward-looking (controller) and forward-looking (CFO).
- If the backward list is longer, hire or upgrade the controller first.
- If the forward list is longer, price a part-time CFO before a full-time search.
- Revisit in twelve months. The right answer changes as the business does.