A CFO's brain, without the CFO salary

US fractional CFOs typically run $2,000–$10,000+/mo depending on hours and complexity. DaxHive's fractional CFO starts from $899/mo — senior finance expertise amplified by AI, scoped as a monthly subscription, month-to-month. Or get the CFO plus every other back-office service on MATRIX at $3,000/mo. We break down the market pricing in detail on our blog.

Yes — cash-flow timing is the core of what a DaxHive fractional CFO does for real estate and construction, where money goes out months before it comes back in. The main tool is a 13-week rolling cash-flow forecast: a week-by-week view of exactly when cash lands and when it leaves, so you see a crunch weeks ahead instead of the morning payroll is due. For construction that means modeling progress-billing and retainage timing and draw schedules against payroll, materials and subcontractor payments; for real estate it means mapping rent, refinance and sale proceeds against mortgage, property-tax, insurance and repair outflows. From there we flag the tight weeks early and adjust billing cadence, spending or financing before it becomes an emergency.

Because in construction the profit and the cash arrive at different times, and the gap usually hides in two places a P&L never shows: under-billings and retainage. Under-billing means you've done work you haven't invoiced yet, so you're financing that job out of your own pocket until you catch up; over-billing is the reverse — cash collected but not yet earned, which flatters the bank balance until the work comes due. Retainage is the portion an owner holds back on every progress payment (typically 5–10%), often not released until months after a job closes, so a slice of every project's margin sits in someone else's account. A DaxHive fractional CFO surfaces both: the work-in-progress (WIP) schedule shows over- versus under-billing on every active job, and the 13-week cash-flow forecast times retainage releases and draw schedules against payroll, materials and subs — so you see the squeeze coming weeks out and can bill, draw or adjust spending before it turns into a missed payroll.

A bookkeeper records what happened — transactions, reconciliations, monthly close. An accountant/CPA reports and files on what happened — statements and tax returns. A CFO decides what should happen next — cash-flow planning, pricing, forecasts, whether you can afford that hire or that property. Most small businesses have the first two and nobody doing the third.

They do different jobs. Your CPA looks backward and files — usually once a year. A CFO looks forward every week: runway, margins, pricing, upcoming cash crunches. A CPA telling you in April that last year was unprofitable is not the same as a CFO telling you in June that this quarter is heading that way.

The usual sweet spot is roughly $500k–$20M in revenue: big enough that gut-feel decisions carry real money, too small to justify a $200k+ full-time CFO. If you're pricing jobs, buying properties, carrying debt or managing payroll off instinct, you're in range.

A senior finance specialist, amplified by AI, working your numbers on a recurring cadence: cash-flow and runway updates, budget vs. actuals, KPI and margin dashboards, and reviews of pricing and profitability — plus lender- or investor-ready reporting when you need to raise or refinance. Scoped as a monthly engagement, not an hourly meter.

Yes — a CFO can't forecast from bad data. If your books are behind, DaxHive bookkeeping brings them current first (from $399/mo), then the CFO work starts from numbers you can trust. Many clients run both together.