The Smarter Way to Scale Finance: Should You Consider Fractional Services?

Ever feel like your finance team is held together by duct tape and grit?: 

You’ve been running lean for years—one person handling expenses, another juggling revenue, and reporting squeezed in wherever it fits. You know there is a critical separation of duties and controls you must keep in place but the workload keeps growing. New accounting standards keep coming out and so more and more expertise is required. And now you are being asked to be more strategic and forward-looking even though you are already at capacity. 

Does this sound like the team you are running? If so, you're not imagining it—it really is more than one team can handle.

No matter the challenges, you always have to “do more with less.”  If budgets are stretched, it may seem like there are no alternatives and you just have to double down and manage what you can, keep up your team’s morale and hope for the best.  But there’s a better way, a rethinking of the old “build a full in-house finance team” playbook. In a world where agility and efficiency aren’t just nice-to-haves—they’re survival tools—#fractional accounting and advisory services are becoming the go-to solution to scale expertise without scaling overhead. In fact, a recent survey found that nearly half of middle-market firms used fractional services to augment their in-house teams. You get high-caliber financial insight without the high cost, and flexibility without sacrificing control.

But is it the right fit for your business? Let’s consider the advantages and trade-offs of working with a fractional expert. 

✅ The Upside: Why Fractional Might Be Right for You

1. Cost Efficiency and Flexibility

Fractional services allow you to access best-in-class finance and accounting knowledge without the long-term financial commitment. You get the support you need—when you need it—while staying within your budget. On the one hand, a fruitful fractional partnership can allow your company  to scale the scope of services up and down as needed to keep the proverbial train moving forward. On the other hand, if you know that you need continuous support to maintain your baseline of operations but cannot grow your team, adding a fractional adviser can help make the case for significant value-add without full-time cost. 

2. Access to Specialized Expertise 

Whether you're facing a major transaction, regulatory changes, or planning for growth, fractional advisers bring tailored expertise that’s often out of reach for smaller teams. Do you remember the recent lease accounting implementation and the amount of time it took your team to get their arms around what the guidance requires and how it applies to your specific circumstances? Bringing a fractional expert onboard to wade through your lease agreements, create an implementation plan, draft an adoption memo and create a new policy would have alleviated much of the pressure and overtime while delivering high-caliber accounting service.

3. Strategic Focus for Your Core Team

Your finance and accounting team occupies a dichotomous space. On the one hand, you are still considered the “back office” where expenses get processed and journal entries are recorded. On the other hand, your team is under growing demand to be a strategic partner to the business, to help grow revenue, retain customers, find value leakage and advise on profitability. Finding bandwidth to do both effectively is nothing short of a miracle. Instead of considering this situation an insurmountable challenge, flip the script. Divide and conquer the day-to-day effectively by transferring a portion of the  functions to a fractional adviser so your internal team can zero in on strategic matters and become more involved in the business. By shifting the focus, you can foster growth in skills and responsibilities on your existing team and create a solid foundation for the necessary, daily work to keep your mind at peace.  

4. Better Risk Management and Compliance

The job of a fractional adviser is to bring assistance and expertise to your team. Many work across a landscape of issues which creates a valuable reservoir of knowledge and is available to you when you need it. Fractional professionals  stay current with evolving regulations and accounting standards. They monitor upcoming guidance and parse out the important pieces for their clients. Did you have a chance to read through the new tax bill making its way through the legislature? Your fractional adviser did!  Keeping up to date can help you stay ahead of the curve, plan for the future and maintain a good compliance and risk management posture. 

At this point, you are probably saying “This all sounds great but what am I giving up?” Let’s take a look at some of the trade-offs. 

❗The Trade-Offs: What to Consider Before You Commit

1. Potential Loss of Control

If there is one thing that rings true for every accounting team, it’s that each one likes things done in its own way.  The idiosyncrasies of each company, the workload on each team member and the structure of the team itself often dictate how things are done. Therefore, handing over financial tasks to an external partner can feel uncomfortable at first. It can feel like you are losing control over well-established routines and something is bound to go amiss. The key is to establish clear expectations, communication protocols, and new routines, and to remember that everyone’s role is shifting. This is an opportunity for growth, not loss of control. 

2. Integration Takes Effort

Your fractional adviser is excited to join your team! They love this type of work and want to help alleviate your pain points. The best ones will take time to understand your business, learn your systems, processes, and culture. To successfully collaborate with your fractional adviser firstly create space on the team to welcome them and ask each staff to spend time with them onboarding. Then, encourage ongoing interaction and collaboration. Introduce your adviser to the Board and provide the context for how they will be working on strategic issues. This will help your adviser come up the learning curve quickly and begin adding value immediately. 

3. Data Security and Confidentiality

Your financial data is privileged, sensitive information that must be safeguarded accordingly. Sharing sensitive information requires trust and rigorous security policies and procedures in place. Before bringing on fractional support, reach out to your Chief Information Officer and/or Chief Information Security Officer to discuss appropriate system access controls. The added benefit of this exercise is that it will nudge you to review your current controls and find ways to improve them. At the same time, you will  ensure your partner will work  within an environment of robust data protection protocols while having access to the necessary systems and tools to do the job you’ve hired them to do. 

4. Dependency RisksReliance on any third-party provider carries inherent risk. Your fractional adviser will be helping with important tasks and projects. The last thing you want is your adviser departing and you not knowing where to access files, how the work was done and what kind of collaboration took place to accomplish it. The good news is your fractional adviser should have a lot of experience and has been in this situation before. Make sure that part of the job is documentation of  processes to maintain continuity if the relationship changes. Touch base with your fractional adviser regularly to review workstreams to understand how the work gets done and provide appropriate oversight. With the right guardrails in place you will minimize surprises down the road. 

The Bottom Line

The day-to-day landscape for finance and accounting teams keeps getting more complex.  Budgets are not keeping up and small teams are expected to carry operational and strategic work without missing a beat. Fractional accounting and advisory services can be the key success ingredient to help you keep moving and succeeding. Think of them as your strategic tool  to stay lean, adaptive, and competitive. When implemented thoughtfully, fractional services offer meaningful advantages without sacrificing quality or control. 

If your company is exploring the idea of fractional financial leadership, I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you have not considered fractional help before but are curious to learn more, let’s connect and continue the conversation. 👇

My fractional advisory firm, LCS Advisers (www.lcsadvisers.com)  is here to help.

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