What a Fractional FC Achieves in the First 90 Days

Businesses engaging a fractional Financial Controller for the first time usually have a clear problem — the numbers are late, or not trusted, or nobody senior is accountable for them — and much less clarity about what should actually change and how quickly. That vagueness is the commonest reason these arrangements disappoint: without a defined expectation, three months pass, things are somewhat better, and nobody can say whether it was worth it. This guide sets out what a fractional FC should realistically achieve in the first ninety days, roughly when, what good looks like at each stage, and the warning signs that it is not going well.

The FC should be qualified — ICAEW, ACCA or CIMA, and worth verifying — and carrying professional indemnity cover. The assumption throughout is two days a week — roughly twenty-six working days over the period, which is a useful thing to hold in mind. Ninety days of elapsed time is not ninety days of work.

Days 1–15: diagnosis

The first three or four visits are about finding out what is actually true, and a business should expect questions rather than output.

What should happen: a full review of the balance sheet and when each account was last reconciled; a walk through the last two months’ close, including what went wrong; conversations with whoever processes the transactions; a look at the systems and where the manual workarounds are; and an early read on the control environment — who approves what, and whether anyone checks.

What good looks like: by the end of week three you should receive a written assessment naming the three or four things that matter most, with a proposed order. Not a list of everything wrong — a prioritised view, which is the judgement you are paying for.

Warning sign: an FC who starts fixing things in week one without diagnosing. It looks like energy and it usually means they are addressing what is visible rather than what matters.

Days 15–45: the close

The first priority in almost every engagement, because everything else depends on numbers people trust.

What should happen: a published close timetable with named owners including people outside finance; the balance sheet reconciliation index built and the backlog worked through; accruals and prepayments put on a documented basis; and the first close run under the new process — which will still be imperfect.

What good looks like: by the second close within the engagement, the numbers arrive on a date people were told in advance, and the FC can explain any account you ask about. Speed comes later; reliability comes first, and a business that gets a dependable day-ten close after ninety days has gained more than one promised day six and given day fourteen. Our guide to optimising the month-end close covers what the process should look like.

Warning sign: reconciliations still described as “in progress” at day forty-five. That usually means the backlog was worse than disclosed — which is common and should have been flagged in the diagnosis, not discovered in month two.

Days 30–60: reporting that means something

Overlapping with the close work, because the pack is the visible output.

What should happen: a management pack rebuilt around what the leadership actually needs to decide, with commentary explaining variances by cause rather than listing them; cash flow reporting and a forward view if none existed; and the first proper conversation with the founder or FD about what the numbers are saying.

What good looks like: you read the pack. That is the test, and it is a low bar that a surprising number of finance functions fail. Our guides to management reporting that gets read and the backward and forward split cover what belongs in it.

Warning sign: a pack that has grown rather than improved. More pages is not more insight, and it usually means the FC is demonstrating effort rather than exercising judgement.

Days 45–90: controls and the team

The less visible work, and the part that determines whether the improvement survives.

What should happen: approval limits and segregation of duties addressed where they were absent; the obvious control gaps closed — bank access, supplier changes, credit notes — along the lines the ICAEW sets out for smaller entities; the transactional team given a defined process and someone reviewing their work; and the whole thing documented well enough that somebody else could run it.

What good looks like: by day ninety, the process exists outside the FC’s head. This matters more in a fractional arrangement than a permanent one, precisely because they are not there on Thursday. Our guide to internal controls for growing businesses covers the basics that should be in place.

Warning sign: everything still depends on them. A fractional FC who has made themselves indispensable in ninety days has built a dependency rather than a function — which feels like value and is the opposite.

What should be true at day 90

A reasonable set of expectations to agree at the outset and review against:

Area	Expected position at day 90
Close	Runs to a published timetable; date is met
Balance sheet	Fully reconciled, index in place, reviewed monthly
Reporting	A pack the leadership reads, with useful commentary
Cash	A forward view exists and is updated
Controls	Approval limits, segregation and access addressed
Team	Defined responsibilities, work reviewed
Documentation	Process written down, not held in one head
You	Spending materially less time on finance than before

That last row is the one that matters commercially. The purpose of the engagement is usually to take finance off the founder or FD; if it has not, something is wrong regardless of how good the numbers look.

What should not be expected in 90 days

Being realistic protects the arrangement. A systems implementation — that is a separate project, separately scoped and priced. A transformed close time: fourteen days to six is a six-to-twelve month journey, not a quarter. Deep commercial insight, which requires understanding a business properly — expect it in months four to six. And a fully developed team; twenty-six days is not long enough to change how people work.

If your requirement genuinely is a systems change or a rapid transformation, that is a project alongside the fractional arrangement, or an interim FC full-time for a defined period — our comparison of interim versus fractional covers the choice.

Making it work from your side

Four things the client controls, and they determine the outcome as much as the FC does. Give real authority on day one — system access, sign-off limits, and the ability to direct the transactional team. Introduce them properly, so people outside finance know who they are and why. Be honest in the briefing about what is broken; they will find it in week two anyway, and the good ones find it interesting. And protect the days: an FC whose Tuesdays keep getting rearranged cannot build a rhythm. Our guide to managing an interim or fractional FC covers the relationship.