Fractional FP&A Chicago
Fractional FP&A Services forGrowing Chicago Businesses
Get the financial planning, forecasting, analytics, and decision support of a sophisticated FP&A team—without building the full-time overhead.
We help privately held and PE-backed businesses throughout Greater Chicago improve financial visibility, understand profitability, forecast cash and performance, and make better business decisions.
Designed for growing businesses generally between $10M and $100M in revenue.
Serving Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, with broader support throughout the Midwest.
The business problem
Your Accounting May Be Strong. Your Financial Visibility May Still Be Limited.
Many growing businesses reach a stage where accounting alone no longer provides enough information for management to run the company forward.
Accounting is essential for
- Accurate financial statements
- Transactions
- Compliance
- Controls
- Historical reporting
But management also needs to answer
- Where will revenue finish this year?
- Where will EBITDA finish?
- What happens to cash if we grow faster?
- Why are margins changing?
- Which customers or services are most profitable?
- Can we afford additional hiring?
- What happens if sales miss forecast?
- Which investment creates the best return?
Accounting tells you what happened. FP&A helps you understand what happens next—and what to do about it.
Common signs
When Does a Growing Business Need FP&A Support?
Most of these patterns show up long before a company is ready to hire a full FP&A department.
Your annual budget becomes outdated quickly.
Forecasting is irregular or driven primarily by intuition.
Finance spends most of its time closing the books.
Management reporting is heavily manual.
The CEO frequently asks for financial analysis that takes days to prepare.
Cash requirements are difficult to predict.
Sales and finance forecasts do not align.
Customer, product, project, or business-unit profitability is unclear.
Management lacks reliable leading KPIs.
Strategic decisions are made without scenario analysis.
The Controller or CFO is overloaded.
The business is becoming more complex but the finance team has not expanded.
These are usually signs of a capability gap—not necessarily a need for another full-time executive.
Definition
What Is Fractional FP&A?
Fractional FP&A provides ongoing access to experienced financial planning and analytical capability on a part-time or shared basis. Your company receives the support it needs without hiring a full internal team.
It is not
- Bookkeeping
- Outsourced accounting
- Tax preparation
- Audit support
- Generic CFO consulting
It focuses on
- Planning
- Forecasting
- Analysis
- Performance management
- Profitability
- Cash visibility
- Strategic decision support
Fractional FP&A adds the capability your business needs at the scale your business needs it.
Better questions
Better FP&A Starts With Better Business Questions
Our role is to make these questions easier to answer—quickly, consistently, and with greater confidence.
- 01
Where will revenue, EBITDA, and cash finish the year?
- 02
Why are results different from plan?
- 03
Which customers, products, services, or business units create the most value?
- 04
What financial risks and opportunities are ahead?
- 05
What should management do differently based on the numbers?
Core services
An FP&A Capability Built Around Your Business
Six pillars of FP&A consulting for Chicago-area companies, delivered at the depth your business needs today.
Financial Planning
- Annual budgeting
- Rolling forecasts
- Headcount planning
- Long-range planning
- Departmental planning
Management Reporting
- Monthly management packages
- Budget-to-actual analysis
- Forecast-to-actual analysis
- EBITDA bridges
- Executive commentary
Revenue & Profitability
- Revenue forecasting
- Customer profitability
- Product or service profitability
- Pricing analysis
- Margin analysis
- Cost-to-serve
Cash & Working Capital
- 13-week cash forecasts
- Longer-term cash planning
- Collections analysis
- Working-capital metrics
- Debt-service planning
KPIs & Performance Management
- KPI architecture
- Executive scorecards
- Leading indicators
- Performance accountability
- Monthly business reviews
Strategic Decision Support
- Scenario analysis
- Hiring decisions
- Capital investments
- Pricing decisions
- Growth initiatives
- M&A analysis
Engagement model
Flexible Support That Scales With Your Business
- 1
Assess
Understand the current finance function, reporting, forecasting, systems, and business priorities.
- 2
Prioritize
Identify the FP&A capabilities that will create the greatest business value.
- 3
Build
Develop the forecasts, reporting, KPIs, models, and operating processes needed.
- 4
Operate & Improve
Provide recurring monthly analysis, forecasting, management support, and continuous improvement.
The goal is not to create more finance work. The goal is to create better financial decisions.
Monthly cadence
What Fractional FP&A Can Look Like Month to Month
Monthly
- Update rolling financial forecast
- Review revenue and pipeline
- Review margin and profitability
- Refresh cash forecast
- Analyze budget and forecast variances
- Update KPI scorecard
- Prepare executive management reporting
- Participate in management review meeting
- Support key financial decisions
Quarterly
- Refresh operating assumptions
- Review strategic scenarios
- Assess customer or product profitability
- Review capital allocation
- Update longer-term financial outlook
Annually
- Lead annual budgeting process
- Build headcount plan
- Develop capital expenditure plan
- Support strategic planning
- Establish annual operating targets
The actual cadence is tailored to the complexity and needs of each business.
Build vs. access
Access an FP&A Capability Without Building an Entire Department
Traditional Internal Build
Potential roles
- Head / VP of FP&A
- FP&A Manager
- Financial Analyst
- BI or reporting support
Potential challenges
- Significant fixed payroll
- Benefits and recruiting costs
- Long hiring timeline
- Limited flexibility
- Risk of overbuilding before the need exists
Fractional Model
Benefits
- Senior-level expertise
- Flexible capacity
- Faster implementation
- Broader analytical skill set
- Lower fixed overhead
- Ability to scale over time
The question is not simply whether fractional FP&A is less expensive. It is whether your company can access the right level of capability without adding more permanent infrastructure than it currently needs.
Best fit
Built for Growing Private Businesses
Typical fit
- $10M–$100M revenue
- 30–500 employees
- Privately held, family-owned, founder-led, or PE-backed
- Existing accounting team or Controller
- Limited dedicated FP&A resources
- Increasing financial complexity
- Management seeking better forward visibility
Service area
Fractional FP&A Support Across Greater Chicago
Based in the Greater Chicago market, we support privately held businesses throughout Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, including major business corridors in the western, northwestern, and northern suburbs—from Naperville, Oak Brook, Downers Grove, and Lisle to Schaumburg, Aurora, and Bolingbrook, and north through Northbrook and Deerfield.
Work is delivered through a practical mix of remote and on-site support: on-site for management reviews, planning cycles, and working sessions with your team, remote for the recurring forecasting and analysis in between.
Broader Midwest engagements are supported the same way—remotely, with periodic on-site work when it adds value.
Remote-first recurring forecasting and analysis
On-site management and planning sessions
Support across Chicago and the collar counties
Periodic on-site work for Midwest engagements
Which model
Fractional or Interim—Which Do You Need?
Fractional FP&A
Ongoing capability without the full-time overhead. Best for companies that need recurring forecasting, reporting, analytics, and decision support but do not need a full-time FP&A leader.
Typical duration: 6–24+ months
Explore Fractional FP&AInterim FP&A Leadership
Experienced leadership during a transition—leadership vacancy, acquisition, transformation, leave, restructuring, or rapid growth.
Typical duration: 3–9 months
Explore Interim FP&A LeadershipFractional when you need more capability. Interim when you need immediate capacity.
Why us
Experienced Finance Leadership. Practical Business Partnership.
Senior Experience
Experienced finance leadership rather than junior outsourced execution.
Hands-On
We don't only recommend solutions. We help build and operate them.
Business Focus
Analysis is tied to growth, profitability, cash, and management decisions.
Scalable
Support can expand or contract as the business evolves.
Technology Enabled
Modern analytics, automation, and AI reduce manual work and increase time spent on analysis.
FP&A Maturity Assessment
How Mature Is Your Company's FP&A Capability?
Evaluate your company across ten areas of financial planning and analysis capability, and see where the biggest gaps are.
Designed for privately held businesses under $100M in revenue.
- Forecasting
- Budgeting
- Cash
- Profitability
- KPIs
- Systems
- Scenario planning
- Business partnership
FAQ
Fractional FP&A Questions We Hear Most
What does fractional FP&A mean?
Fractional FP&A gives your company ongoing, shared access to experienced financial planning and analysis capability. Instead of hiring a full internal team, you engage senior FP&A support on a recurring part-time basis to run forecasting, management reporting, profitability analysis, and decision support.
What size company benefits from fractional FP&A?
It is most useful for growing private businesses—commonly $10M to $100M in revenue—where financial complexity has increased meaningfully but the workload does not yet justify a full-time FP&A department.
How is fractional FP&A different from a fractional CFO?
Fractional FP&A concentrates on planning, forecasting, analytics, profitability, performance management, and decision support. Fractional CFO services are broader and may include overall finance leadership, capital structure, banking and lender relationships, accounting oversight, and governance.
How is fractional FP&A different from accounting?
Accounting is largely backward-looking: accurate statements, transactions, compliance, and controls. FP&A is forward-looking: what happens next, why results differ from plan, and what management should do about it. The two are complementary, and strong accounting makes FP&A far more effective.
How much does fractional FP&A cost?
Engagements are typically structured as monthly retainers based on the level of analytical capability, leadership, and capacity required. Typical engagements may range from approximately $6,000 to $15,000+ per month.
Do you replace our Controller or accounting team?
No. Fractional FP&A complements an existing Controller, accounting team, or CFO by adding forward-looking planning and analysis capability rather than duplicating accounting work.
Do you work on-site?
Services are delivered through a combination of remote and on-site support depending on the engagement, the location, and where in-person collaboration adds the most value.
How do we get started?
Most companies begin with the FP&A Maturity Assessment to benchmark their current capability, or by scheduling a Financial Visibility Review to discuss priorities directly.
Know Where Your Business Is Going—Before You Get There.
Better forecasting, stronger profitability insight, clearer cash visibility, and more confident financial decisions can be built without adding an entire internal FP&A team.