Part-time CFO a full-time job for outsourced controller

Need a CFO but can't justify the expense?

Got a CFO and can't justify the expense?

You may want to talk to Tony Battaglia. He has served as chief financial officer for as many as eight businesses at a time, sometimes putting in four to eight hours a week per client, occasionally just eight hours a quarter but once in a while as much as two days a week - whatever his clients need from their outsourced CFO.

For Battaglia and others like him, being a part-time CFO is a full-time job. Battaglia is a controller/CFO adviser at BIK & Co., LLP, a full service CPA firm with offices in Libertyville and Palatine that, with tax season essentially over, will soon have six professionals in its outsourcing operation.

The outsourced CFO (or controller) concept works well at many businesses.

"We have very few complex CFO needs," says Paul Klobucher, president of Thomas Interior Systems, Inc., a mid-market sized office planning and furnishings firm in Bloomingdale. "The amount of time we need a CFO is relatively small. I can take all the CFO functions and pay for them when I need them."

Part of the benefit for Thomas Interior Systems is that the BIK concept includes training client staff to do many of the routine accounting functions. As a result, Klobucher says, Battaglia's hours have "steadily diminished from two days a week on the high end to two days a month" now.

"He'll do the most mundane functions if I need for him to," Klobucher says, but Klobucher's intent is to use Battaglia for more typical CFO management functions - evaluating new products and services, for example.

BIK's Tim Beck "came with the bank" at Ex-Cell Kaiser, LLC, when President Janet Kaiser bought the Franklin Park product line manufacturer in an asset purchase from a bank two and a half years ago.

"I kept him on board as I took over," Kaiser says. "We did have a (CFO-controller) on staff, but the company wasn't doing well and it wasn't necessary to have a full-time position."

Beck, like Battaglia a full-time BIK part-time controller/CFO adviser, "gives me another set of financial eyes," Kaiser says. "He's very helpful on weekly reports (and) presenting financial information to our board of advisers."

Even so, Kaiser wants "to diminish (BIK's) monthly use. (The service) is not expensive - in fact it costs less than (equivalent) staff - but I'd like qualified staff (in-house) to do the books and projections."

Klobucher doesn't see an in-house CFO at Thomas Interior "unless our business model fundamentally changes," but Kaiser's approach is reasonably typical. "Not every company can afford a full-time CFO," says BIK Managing Partner Larry Schmitt, "but a company can outgrow this type of service."

Questions, comments to Jim Kendall, JKendall@121MarketingResources.com. © 2009 121 Marketing Resources, Inc.