The week before a fractional CFO starts is usually the week a founder realises how scattered their numbers really are. Invoices sit in an email folder, the bank feed hasn’t reconciled since March, and nobody can say with confidence what last quarter’s gross margin was. None of that is unusual, and none of it disqualifies you from bringing in senior finance help. But every hour that new hire spends hunting for a document is an hour they’re not spending on the work you’re paying for. A little preparation shifts the first month from archaeology to actual progress.
Gather Your Financial Records in One Place
Start by pulling together everything a finance professional will ask for in the first fortnight. That means your last two or three years of annual financial statements, recent management accounts, your latest VAT submissions, and PAYE records. Add any loan agreements, shareholder agreements, and lease contracts that carry financial obligations. If you’ve raised money or taken on debt, the term sheets and repayment schedules belong in the pile too.
Put it all in a single shared drive with sensible folder names rather than emailing files piecemeal. A Johannesburg founder who spends a Saturday organising this will save weeks of back-and-forth later. The goal isn’t to make the records perfect; it’s to make them findable. If something is missing or you know a number is wrong, note it. Honest gaps are far more useful to a new finance leader than a tidy surface hiding surprises underneath.
Map Out What You Actually Want This Person to Fix
Before the first meeting, write down the three or four problems that made you look for help in the first place. Maybe cash keeps running tight even though sales are growing. Maybe you can’t get a lender to take you seriously because your reporting looks amateur. Maybe you’re heading into a funding round and know your model won’t survive scrutiny. Being specific here matters more than most founders expect.
A good part time CFO will bring their own diagnosis, but they work faster when they understand what success looks like to you from day one. Rank your priorities honestly, because a fractional engagement runs on limited hours and you can’t fix everything at once. If cash visibility matters more than a five-year strategic plan right now, say so. Written priorities also protect you from the slow drift where an engagement expands into vague general helpfulness and never quite delivers the thing you originally needed.
Sort Out Access to Your Accounting and Banking Systems
Nothing stalls a start date like access problems. Set up a login for your accounting software ahead of time, whether that’s Xero, Sage, or QuickBooks, and confirm the permission level lets them see everything without letting them accidentally break your books. Sort out view access to your bank accounts, or at least a reliable way to export statements. Loop in your existing bookkeeper or accountant so they know a new person is coming and understand how the two roles fit together. Handled early, this is a five-minute task. Handled on the first morning, it becomes a fortnight of waiting for someone to remember a password.
Prepare Your Team for a New Voice in the Numbers
Your staff will notice when someone new starts asking pointed questions about spending, margins, and why a particular customer is always paid late. Tell them ahead of time who this person is and why they’re here. Frame it as support rather than surveillance, because a defensive team hides information and a curious team surfaces it. Let the person who currently owns your bookkeeping know their work is valued and that the relationship is collaborative, not a takeover. Warm introductions from you carry weight that no amount of competence can replace in the first few weeks.
Set Milestones for the First Three Months
Agree on a handful of concrete outcomes for the opening quarter so both sides can tell whether the engagement is working. A cleaned-up chart of accounts, a monthly management pack that lands on a fixed date, a rolling cash-flow forecast you actually trust. Keep the list short and measurable.
Budget Realistically for the Engagement
Decide what you can commit financially before you negotiate hours, not after. Fractional finance leadership across South Africa is priced to be affordable, but underfunding the engagement to a day a month often means the strategic work never gets past firefighting. Give it enough room to produce the returns you’re hoping for.
Do this groundwork and the finance leader arrives to a business ready to move, not one still finding its files.