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Maximize Efficiency: How Having a Fractional Controller Can Help Your Business Grow

Overwhelmed with the increasing financial complexity of your business accounting as your business grows, but unsure of what you need next? Use this guide to determine if a fractional (outsourced) controller is the best move based on the state of your business.

This blog at a glance:

• Learn why basic bookkeeping can’t handle scaling without an accounting strategy.
• Understand how with a lack of strategic accounting experience, you risk losing money.
• Analyze if you’d benefit more from an outsourced controller or CFO.
• Consider the benefits of an outsourced accounting partner: upskilling your team faster, collecting accurate data, identifying inefficiencies from experience, and reinvesting cash flow into the business as opposed to a full-time hire’s salary.
• Ask the right questions to find the best partnership for your business.

Why Does Having Strategic Financial Leadership Matter?

Once your business crosses a tipping point in revenue, you need to make sure your financial system is scalable and built on repeatable systems that allow its growth. Basic bookkeeping work you’ve been doing can’t keep up with growing operations.

It’s common to see lost money from poor accounting controls, missed tax opportunities, or financial structures that can’t support funding, growth, or a timely exit in a large transaction. You can also suffer cash flow struggles based on the structure that’s in place.

Numbers can be deceptive if you’re not as experienced with accounting strategy. They can feel good, but you may be looking at the wrong data. Or have an ineffective system capturing it.
By the time other weak points (like the list above) are exposed, you’ll end up learning lessons that are quite expensive. However, with strategic oversight from a fractional controller from an outsourced accounting partner, you can quickly catch them.

Controller vs CFO vs Accountant: What’s the Value of Each?

Bookkeepers and accountants are meant to work transactionally, not strategically. If your business is rapidly growing or has opportunity for scaling, the expertise of a controller and/or CFO are vital.

However, it’s easy to wonder which role is the best fit for where you’re at. We’ve broken down the value that each one adds so you can use these guiding principles to ensure you have the right expectations and people in place as you assemble your team. 

When To Hire An Outsourced Controller

Some common reasons you might need to hire an outsourced controller include:

• You’re not closing your books on time.
• Your books are disorganized and hard to manage.
• You’re having cash flow problems from inefficiencies. 
• You need to prepare to raise capital or for an M&A.

An accounting controller role frees up your CFO or C-Suite leaders to focus on being strategic. And provides financial oversight to ensure daily accounting work is completed to high standards.

When To Hire An Outsourced CFO 

If you’re beyond a certain point in the market and need more strategic depth than a controller can provide, you may need to consider CFO advisory support. This is useful if:

• You lack a financial leader with strategic experience.
• You had turnover and need interim support while hiring.
• You’re managing rapid growth.
• You’re navigating uncertain economic conditions.

You won’t see value from this though if you’re not ready to act on financial insights or if you don’t have reliable bookkeeping in place. Accurate data is the foundation for effective business decisions. If you don’t have that, then a fractional controller is the better option.

What’s the Benefit of An Outsourced Controller vs Hiring In-House?

1. You can upskill faster and easier.

With outsourced controller services, you’re accessing an expert with diverse experience supporting businesses in different industries. And because of that exposure, typically a fractional controller is also more familiar with the latest technology, regulatory changes, and trends within accounting.

For example, in a 2025 survey of CFOs and controllers from small to medium-size businesses 63% said that implementing AI technology in 2025 was a top priority. And that it was their focus over increasing back-office tech, cybersecurity, business intelligence, ERP software, and cloud technology.

Keeping up with the pace of changes, like accounting technology, is difficult. Plus, upskilling an in-house team takes away resources from other areas of the business. But an outsourced controller will be familiar with the latest tech, like AI, or best practices. Because of that, they can guide your team to make upskilling go smoother and faster.

2. You can overcome the data deluge.

For smaller to mid-sized businesses, the issue isn’t always about lacking financial data. It’s more about translating that raw data into what’s most impactful.

If data isn’t being interpreted or shared properly, it will damage what you’re trying to build. This is why having someone who can make sure the data you record and the systems capturing it are accurate is key.

Fractional controller services can help you take that data and set up the right KPIs, dashboards, and forecasting models that are easy to understand and nimble to speed up collection. That way you have the most important data in hand for decision-making.

3. You can get an unbiased view.

It’s easy to have blind spots to internal workflows the longer you’re a part of an organization. Or not be aware of industry best practices that have changed. But an outsourced controller can identify outdated software, inefficient workflows, and redundant tasks because they’re not blinded by institutional habits. 

Plus, from unusual vendor payments to inconsistencies across reporting, it’s easy for busy owners or bookkeepers to miss critical details while running the business. Someone outside your team with financial experience can quickly spot fraudulent activity or accidental mistakes that might otherwise go unnoticed. 

4. You can put cash flow into the business.

The average salary of a controller in the US sits between $120K-$200K+ in the US. And naturally the market you’re in and experience level you’re looking for impacts that pay range. On top of that, you have any benefits, bonuses, and long-term incentives to consider. 

Plus there are the costs associated with hiring the right person and any related to turnover. Replacing a more senior team member has a higher price. You can expect it to at least cost anywhere from one-half to two times the prior employee’s salary according to Gallup’s data. 

If you need the strategic oversight of a controller, but don’t have enough demand for a full-time hire, outsourcing helps you achieve that efficiency in accounting at a more effective cost. Plus, you can work with a fractional controller who has a higher experience level than perhaps what you could budget and hire for in-house.

With outsourcing, you can ultimately save on salaries and reinvest that cash flow back into the key areas that will accelerate growing the business.

See Real Results

Here’s how our outsourced accounting team, Powered By Centri, helped a Biotech company overcome its accounting management challenges to better navigate high-cost R&D phases and allocate resources.

Read the Case Study

Top Questions To Ask When Hiring A Fractional Controller

Experience

• What experiences do you have with businesses of our size and/or industry?
• What accounting software and ERP systems are you proficient in?
• What professional credentials do you and your team have?
• Do you have any past examples of work or references you can share with us?

Process

• What’s your typical month close process and how long will it take to produce financial statements?
• How will you communicate financial performance and KPIs to our team? 
• How will you divide labor between your team and our in-house staff?
• How do you handle variance analysis and budgeting, and how often will we review them?

Project Scope

• What’s your onboarding process like?
• How will you handle requests or emergencies that fall outside our normal schedule?
• If we grow more and need advanced services (like a fractional CFO), can you support that?

Sunny Patel

Managing Director | CPA

Sunny is a Managing Director at Centri Business Consulting. He has more than 14 years of public and private accounting experience. View Sunny Patel's Full Bio