FCCA
Mohammad Azam
Founder & CEO
Founded the practice and still reads client accounts himself. FCCA is the fellowship grade of the chartered certified qualification, which takes years of practice beyond the exams to hold.
Fractional CFO for marketing agencies Your books balance. They still tell you nothing.
Nobody hires a CFO because they want more finance. They hire one because guessing has started to cost real money.
( Where it costs you )
What this is actually costing
- ( 1 )
You can name your favorite clients. You cannot name your most profitable.
A retainer signed two years ago runs at a loss every month and nobody has ever added it up.
- ( 2 )
Utilization and effective hourly rate decide whether you are profitable.
Almost no agency tracks either, so a busy quarter and a profitable one get confused for each other.
- ( 3 )
Pass-through media spend inflates your revenue.
The top line looks healthy while the fee income underneath it barely covers delivery.
- ( 4 )
Unbilled work in progress sits on nobody's report.
Work is delivered, not invoiced, and the cash gap shows up weeks later as a surprise.
- ( 5 )
Pricing was set years ago and never revisited against delivery cost.
You are still charging three-year-old rates on a cost base that has moved twice since.
- ( 6 )
You cannot tell whether you can afford the next hire.
So you hire six months late, or you hire early and spend the year worrying about it.
What changes
Fractional CFO, and what it does to your numbers
A fractional CFO gives your agency senior finance leadership for a few days a month instead of a full-time salary. You get profit by client, utilization and effective hourly rate, a 13-week cash forecast, and pricing built on what delivery actually costs. A qualified accountant does the work and knows your accounts by name.
We read your numbers every month and bring you the decision. Profit on each client, a forecast that reaches past the next payroll, and a straight answer on pricing and hiring.
Profit and loss by client, monthly
You find out in March that a two-year retainer loses money, not in December when someone finally adds it up.
Utilization and effective hourly rate
The rate card says $150. You find out what each account really earns once every hour is counted.
Profit by project and service line
You stop selling more of the service that earns least and start selling more of the one that earns.
Gross fee income separated from pass-through
Media spend stops flattering the top line, so you are managing the number you actually keep.
A work in progress schedule
Delivered but unbilled work appears on the report, so it gets invoiced instead of forgotten.
A 13-week rolling cash forecast
You know six weeks out whether payroll clears without touching the credit line.
Retainer repricing built on delivery cost
You reprice on what the work costs today, with the margin per retainer shown after the change.
A hiring capacity model
You know the revenue level that funds the next hire, so you hire ahead of the growth.
Investor and procurement ready reporting
A raise or a large client's vendor check opens with numbers that already stand up.
A board pack, if you run a board
The meeting starts on the decisions rather than on twenty minutes of explaining the numbers.
Budget set annually, reforecast quarterly
You find out you are tracking under in month three, while there is still time to change it.
Variance analysis on every close
You get told why the month missed, not just that it missed, so the fix is obvious.
Scenario models before you commit
Losing your largest client, adding two people, or moving to a new office, costed before the decision.
Client concentration and revenue risk tracking
If one client is 40 percent of revenue, you know the number and can act before they leave.
Valuation drivers and exit readiness
You learn what the agency is worth today and which two levers move that number most.
Lender and credit line negotiation support
You go into the conversation with a forecast that stands up, which is what changes the rate.
Run the numbers
What a few points of margin is worth
Worked example
Run the numbers on a 12-person agency billing $2.4M a year at a 14 percent net margin.
- Net profit today
- $336,000
- One retainer running at minus 6 percent
- $18,000 lost a year
- Four points of margin across the whole book
- $96,000 a year
Put your own numbers through the profit leak calculator and see what your version looks like.
( Compare )
A bookkeeper, a fractional CFO and a full-time CFO compared
| Bookkeeper | Fractional CFO | Full-time CFO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Records what already happened | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Profit by client and service line | No | Yes | Yes |
| Utilization and effective hourly rate | No | Yes | Yes |
| Builds the pricing and hiring model | No | Yes | Yes |
| Investor ready reporting for a raise | No | Yes | Yes |
| Available before a decision, not after | No | Yes | Yes |
| What it costs you | The least | A share of a senior salary | A full senior salary, benefits and often equity |
Bookkeeping, tax and CFO work from one team start at $997 a month. See what sets the price.
Questions
The things agency owners ask first
01What does a fractional CFO actually do for a marketing agency?
Works out the profit on each client, tracks utilization and effective hourly rate, forecasts cash, and prices work on real delivery cost. It is the layer above bookkeeping, where decisions get made rather than recorded.
02How much does it cost, and how does that compare to hiring?
It starts from $997 a month. A finance hire who could do this work costs a senior salary plus benefits, and you would still need a bookkeeper underneath them. You get the actual number on the call.
03We already have a bookkeeper. What changes?
If the books are clean we work on top of them and your bookkeeper stays. What changes is that somebody reads the numbers and brings you the decision. If the books are behind, we fix that first.
04We had a bad experience with our last accountant. Why is this different?
Fair question, and the honest answer is to judge us on cadence rather than a promise. You get a named CFO, a weekly or monthly session, and someone reachable before any decision over $10,000.
05How long before we see anything useful?
The first read on profit by client comes out of your last twelve months, so it lands in week four rather than month four.
06Are you a CPA firm?
No. Aprecity Consultants LLC is not a public accounting firm and does not offer services requiring a public accountancy license. We work alongside your CPA where one is needed.
If your clients sit in one vertical
The numbers change with the clients you serve
Interior design clients
Build timelines run 4 to 12 months, so unbilled work piles up against a project stage nobody is checking.
Healthcare clients
Compliance and clinical sign-off rounds add revision hours that rarely appear in the original scope.
eCommerce clients
Ad spend runs through your account and revenue tracks your client's sales season, not your cost base.
Go deeper
Frameworks you can run on your own numbers
8 min read
How to calculate your agency's effective hourly rate
Your effective hourly rate is the total fee on an account divided by every hour your team put into it. It is almost always lower than your rate card, and the gap between the two is what scope creep costs you. Here is how to work it out in an afternoon.
5 min read
Why a large client's procurement team cares about your books
Above a certain contract size, winning work stops being a pitch decision and becomes a procurement one. A vendor onboarding check looks at whether your business is stable enough to deliver for two years. Weak financial records lose deals that the creative already won.
6 min read
How to build a cash flow forecast for your agency
An agency cash flow forecast lists, week by week, the cash you expect to collect and the cash you have to pay. It starts from today's bank balance, and thirteen weeks is enough. It shows you the week you run short while there is still time to move a payment or chase an invoice.
5 min read
Agency client concentration risk: what losing your largest client costs
Your concentration risk is not your largest client's share of fees. It is the share of your profit that client carries, and the months your cash lasts once it leaves. Work out both for your top three clients, and you know how exposed you really are.
6 min read
Agency payroll as a percentage of revenue: how to work out your own
Divide every dollar you spend on people by your gross income, not your revenue, and include your own salary. Then compare it with the ceiling your overheads and target profit leave. That ceiling, not anyone else's ratio, tells you whether your team costs too much for your fees.
8 min read
How to calculate profit by client for your agency
Profit by client is each client's fee minus everything it costs you. That means its hours at what an hour costs you, its direct costs and a fair share of overhead. Rank your clients on that number, not on fee, and you see which ones pay you and which ones you carry.
Who does the work
A named lead, not a queue
ACCA
Asad Riaz
Managing Partner & Fractional CFO
Runs the CFO engagements, from profitability by client through to investor-ready reporting for a raise. If you are repricing a retainer or sizing the next hire, this is the person on the call.
ACCA
Syed Faheem Basit
Fractional CFO & Business Analyst
Builds the models behind the pricing and hiring calls, and the reporting that makes them readable. Utilization, effective hourly rate and the 13-week cash forecast come from here.
Those are the three who lead the practice. Behind them is the wider team that keeps books current, prepares returns and builds the reporting packs. What does not change is who owns your account. One of the three above leads it and answers when you ask why a number moved.
Client case study
Stuck for a year, and it was never the effort.
Next step
Find out which client is costing you money
A call is 20 minutes. Bring your last twelve months and you will leave knowing whether fractional CFO is the piece you are missing.