r/CFORealtalk

Sat down with our banker and the consolidated financials they needed didn't exist. Two ERPs, no intercompany eliminations, no unified chart of accounts — years of entities closing independently with zero coordination. We mapped everything, built an automated consolidation model, restated two years of financials, brought in a Controller, and rebuilt the finance team mid-process. One thing I always tell founders: buyers know instantly whether your data room was built proactively or assembled under pressure. The deals that close on original terms are the ones where every answer exists before the question gets asked.

Situation is genuinely time sensitive and the audit needs to happen before the financing closes. Books are in reasonable shape but reconciliation gaps and inconsistent accounting policies across periods need to be addressed before auditors walk in. Has anyone gone through a rapid audit preparation process and what did getting the books properly ready actually involve before the formal work began?

Genuinely confused about this. Running a growing professional services firm, have a bookkeeper for transactions and a CPA for taxes, and my investor told me I need something more at this stage. What does fractional CFO support actually add in day to day practice and what kind of business problems does it solve that the other two cannot?

Payroll goes out weekly but client payments arrive on 30 to 45 day terms and managing that gap has always been the hardest part of running this business. We have a bookkeeper and we manage it but I have never had a real cash flow forecasting model that gives me genuine forward visibility. Every slow payment period feels like improvising. What does a properly built cash flow management system actually look like for a staffing or services business running on thin timing margins?

Job costing is inconsistent, cash flow visibility across projects is limited, and every time a bank or bonding company asks for detailed reporting we piece something together that works but does not reflect how sophisticated the business actually is. I want to build something proper that scales with where we are headed rather than patching what we have. Anyone go through this?

Three locations and revenue per site is about all we track. Collections cycle monitoring, payer contract performance, provider productivity reporting, none of it is structured in any useful way. What does this look like when it is genuinely done well?

Panicking a little if I am being real. Banker wants ASC 606 compliance with two prior years restated and our team has zero framework for allocating transaction price across performance obligations. Has anyone resolved this mid-raise without losing the deal?

Recently worked with a client trying to get Claude to handle parts of their close process. Every time it “misunderstood” me I realized the problem was actually my instructions.
Ended up with better documentation than I’ve ever had. Didn’t expect that to be the output. One of the pleasant surprises was its ability to seek out the best ways to connect with data sources.