The market for senior finance support has become more nuanced than it used to be. There was a time when the choice was simple. Either you hired a full-time Chief Financial Officer, or you didn’t. If you didn’t, you managed with a financial manager, and either brought in a consultant for the strategic work, or did without.

That binary has broken down. Between hiring a permanent CFO and having no CFO at all, there are now several models. Fractional CFOs. Virtual finance directors. Project-based advisors. Each solving a slightly different problem.

Which is the real question. Not which model is best, but what problem you are actually trying to solve.

Because the answer to that determines what kind of finance support you actually need.

The permanent full-time Chief Financial Officer

The traditional model: Someone in the finance seat every day, at every meeting, with full ownership of the finance function.

What it does well is straightforward. Deep organisational knowledge. Continuous presence in strategic conversations. Ability to shape decisions in real time. Ownership of a finance team. Accountability that stretches across the year.

The cost is significant, and it is appropriate for businesses that need someone at every material decision. For a business with real complexity, multiple entities, regulated activities, active investors, growth capital, or a genuinely strategic finance function, the permanent CFO is often the only model that actually holds.

The question isn’t whether you can afford one. It’s about whether the decisions your business makes each week require a CFO to be in the room. If they do, part-time arrangements will always feel like they’re falling short. Because they will be.

The fractional CFO, day-based

One common fractional arrangement: A senior finance person is contracted for a set number of days a week, on scheduled days, at a defined day rate.

It works well for predictable, cyclical work. Monthly close. Budget preparation. Board pack production. Financial reporting rhythms. When the work is scheduled, the model fits the schedule.

The tension is different. Financial situations do not respect the CFO’s allocated days. The bank calls on a Thursday about the facility renewal. A board member sends a query Wednesday afternoon that needs an answer by Friday. A deal opportunity surfaces late in the week. Working capital tightens mid-cycle. A senior finance question arises during a Friday management meeting.

The client’s three options in that moment aren’t attractive. Wait until Monday. Pay out-of-schedule rates that erode the cost benefit. Or make the decision without the CFO, which somewhat defeats the point of having one.

This model works well when the finance function is rhythmic. It works less well when the business is in transition, under strain, or growing quickly. Those environments create an urgency the schedule can’t accommodate.

The fractional CFO, hours-based

A different arrangement: Rather than committing to specific days, the CFO commits to an envelope of hours, often per week or per month. Twenty hours a week is common. The client draws against them as the business needs.

What it does well is flexibility within a committed envelope. The client can call on Wednesday morning and again Friday afternoon, and both draw from the same weekly allocation. Ad hoc queries fit within the model, not outside it.

The tensions are different but real. The client is not always sure when the CFO is available because the hours are allocated rather than scheduled. Sometimes the CFO is deep into work with another client when the question comes up. And when the envelope is exceeded, the conversation about additional rates isn’t simple. Is the extra time billable? At what rate? What happens next month?

This model can work well when both parties are disciplined about scoping and reviewing utilisation. It struggles when the client’s needs are unpredictable in both size and timing.

Ad-hoc consulting

The fourth model: Available when the need arises. Priced by engagement, outcome, or scope. No standing commitment on either side.

What it does well is activate when the business needs senior finance thinking and stay quiet when it doesn’t. There is no fixed cost on the P&L. When an urgent question arises, the consultant engages. When the business is running smoothly, both parties are engaged in other activities.

The weaknesses are real too. The consultant doesn’t build the same continuous knowledge of the business that a fractional or full-time CFO does. Revenue for the consultant is less predictable. And ad-hoc engagements require careful scoping upfront, or the model drifts into endless call-outs that neither party intended.

This model tends to fit businesses whose finance needs are event-driven rather than continuous. Capital raises. Transactions. Strategic reviews. Restructurings. Specific decisions where senior perspective is genuinely useful for a defined period.

One more consideration: the consultant versus team question

There is a related observation worth naming, because it applies whether or not a business has a CFO in the seat.

When a specific project comes up – a new investment analysis, a system implementation, a strategic review, a regulatory response – most businesses default to allocating it to the finance team. Whether the team has capacity or not. Whether they have the specific expertise or not. Whether the project is a good use of their time or not.

The alternative, bringing in a consultant for that specific project, is often better for everyone. The team stays focused on its core work. The project gets senior attention from someone specifically qualified. Nobody burns out on work outside their bandwidth.

This applies inside businesses with a full-time CFO too. Sometimes the sharper decision isn’t “give this to my team”. It’s “get someone in specifically to run it”. That is a different use of ad hoc consulting than the “we don’t have a CFO” version, but it is just as legitimate.

The world of work is changing, and so are these models

Something worth noticing about the models above. They exist because the world of work has changed. Remote work made senior finance support accessible without physical presence. Distributed teams made the “one person in one seat” model less obligatory. Digital tools made cross-engagement collaboration viable.

Those shifts are not finished. Automation is reducing the volume of routine finance work. AI is starting to affect analysis, modelling, and reporting. Which means the work that remains – interpretation, judgement, strategic thinking, decision-support – becomes more concentrated in senior finance roles, not less.

The models we’ve described are in their current state. The right answer today may not be the right answer in three years. Not because the models are wrong, but because the shape of the work they exist to support is changing underneath them.

Back to the real question

None of these models is universally right. Which is what makes the question interesting.

A business with predictable, cyclical finance work and a well-run finance team can often get exceptional value from a fractional CFO. A business in transition, or one where strategic finance questions arise at unpredictable moments, may find ad hoc consulting a better fit. A business of real scale or complexity often needs a permanent CFO, and part-time arrangements will keep falling short until the seat is filled properly.

The clearest way to think about this isn’t to compare the models against each other. It is to look honestly at the business and ask three questions. How often, in a normal month, does a genuinely CFO-level question come up? How predictable are those moments? How much does it cost the business when one of them cannot be answered quickly enough?

The answers to those three questions usually clearly point to which model fits. Not because one model is better than the others. Because different models are built for different rhythms.

Which brings us back to where we started. The question isn’t which model is best. It is what problem you are actually trying to solve. And you need to know that before you know what kind of person you are looking for.

There is no right model. There is only the right question.

 

Yusuf Bodiat is a strategic advisor and writer based in Johannesburg. He is the founder of Pragmatic Thinking and the author of The Bottom Line: A CFO’s Blueprint for South Africa’s Turnaround.