WHY XLA STAFFED POD · TWO HUNDRED SPECIALISTS · EIGHT DIVISIONS

A whole finance function, named on day one.

One person can only be in one room. When your lender calls the same week as your auditor, that is the whole problem with hiring a single fractional CFO — and it is how almost everyone in this category is built. Here you get a staffed pod: a named CFO who owns the decisions, a named controller who owns the close, the analysts who do the work underneath both, and a named backup for every one of those seats who already knows your file. Working alongside them, more than two hundred specialists across twelve disciplines. And behind those, sister divisions in engineering, capital, risk, build and communications. Your CFO pulls in whichever of it your month needs. Nothing new to buy, nobody new to manage, and no second invoice.
01
YOUR POD
A named CFO, a named controller, and the people under them
Your CFO decides what the numbers mean and what to do about it — the board, the lender, the investors. Your controller owns the close and the accuracy of the record, and is your day-to-day lead. Underneath them sit the accounting and analysis seats the work actually requires. Every one of those seats has a named backup who already carries your file, and cover is drilled on live accounts every quarter rather than promised in a brochure.
4
NAMED SEATS, EACH WITH A BACKUP
02
BEHIND YOUR POD
The specialist bench they can call on
Modeling, debt, transactions, systems, tax, risk, costing, technical accounting and more — brought onto the parts of the month that call for them. Your CFO specifies the work and stays accountable for it. Your CFO never hands you off, and the bench already knows your file before it arrives.
200+
SPECIALISTS BEHIND THEM
03
BEHIND THE BENCH
Eight divisions of XL Financial Group
Engineering, capital, insurance, technology build and communications — all inside one company, all on the same standard. When your month needs something bigger than the finance seat, your CFO brings it in for you instead of sending you out to find a supplier.
8
DIVISIONS THEY CAN CALL
NAMED, AND WRITTEN DOWN
The people in the first conversation are the people on the account, as a term of the agreement
COVERED, AND DRILLED
A named backup on every seat, running your file for a cycle every quarter
ONE FIXED FEE
The same figure in a quiet month and a brutal one, with the bench included
ALL OF IT UNDER ONE FIXED MONTHLY FEEUNITED STATES AND CANADA
The Job Itself
01 / 05
A fractional CFO is a finance chief who runs your finance function without being a full-time hire.
A finance leader who sits inside your business, owns the numbers, runs the month, sits in your board meetings and takes your lender’s call — for the part of the week your business actually needs one. The test a buyer should apply is simple, and it is the one this whole page is built to answer: how will we know this is working in sixty days? Your CFO writes that answer down before the engagement starts, and reports against it.
Owns the numbers
Your CFO is accountable for whether the accounts are right, not just whether they were filed. When a number moves, they can tell you why before you ask.
Runs the month
The close finished by the seventh working day, the pack in your hands on the eighth, the cash view rebuilt weekly. Dates set in advance and written into the agreement, in a good month and a difficult one.
Sits in the room
Board meetings, bank meetings, the conversation with your accountant, the negotiation with a buyer. Beside you as it happens, not briefed afterwards.
Sees round the corner
The covenant that tightens in month seven, the cash trough eighteen months out, the customer that is quietly unprofitable. Found while there is still time to act, because the job is diagnosis and not just reporting.
Decides, with you
A working session every fortnight, plus whenever something cannot wait for the next one. Two or three real decisions each time, with a recommendation and the reasoning behind it. That is the difference between reporting and leadership.
Builds what outlasts them
A close that runs to a calendar, controls written down, a model your team can use. The function gets stronger whether or not we are still in it.
Which Way You Get One
02 / 05
The real question is not whether you need a CFO. It is which way you get one.
Almost every business at this stage is already paying for the absence of a finance chief — in margin nobody defends, cash nobody forecasts, and decisions made on numbers that arrived too late. These are the four ways owners answer it.
THE OPTIONWHAT IT ISWHERE IT RUNS OUT
Nobody in the seat
THE OWNER DOES IT

You do the forecast at the kitchen table on Sunday, field the lender's questions personally, and make the call on numbers six weeks old.

Works until the business gets complicated or the bank gets interested. Then it is the constraint on everything.

A full-time CFO
ONE SENIOR HIRE

The right answer eventually, and a serious commitment: a search, a package, and a bet on one person being right for the next five years.

Most businesses reach the need for CFO judgement years before they can justify a full-time CFO seat.

A solo fractional CFO
ONE PERSON, PART-TIME

Real CFO experience for part of a week, and the most common answer in this category. The ceiling is whatever that one individual knows and can personally carry.

When the month brings a systems rebuild, a debt negotiation and a tax position at once, one person has to choose which of them to be good at.

A staffed pod
THIS

A named CFO and a named controller in your seats for the term, the accounting and analysis underneath them, a named backup on every seat, and the firm behind all of it.

The judgement of a senior finance chief and the capacity of a department, on one fee, one invoice and one published standard.

An Ordinary Week
03 / 05
What your CFO is doing in an ordinary week.
Fractional means the right amount of a senior person, on a rhythm you can plan around — and a pod underneath them working your file every day of the week, not only on the days your CFO is in it. A typical week in a settled engagement looks like this.
CASH
The rolling forecast moves forward with the week's actuals in it, and your CFO tells you if anything changed that matters.
DECISIONS
The two or three things needing a call this week — a price, a hire, a payment run, a piece of capital — with a recommendation on each.
THE OUTSIDE
Whatever the bank, the auditor, the accountant or a buyer has asked for that week, answered by your CFO rather than routed to you.
THE BUILD
One thing that makes next month easier than this one: a control, a report, a process that stops depending on somebody's memory.
YOUR TEAM
Time with whoever does the finance work now — setting the standard, unblocking them, and making them better at it.
Behind Your CFO
04 / 05
Twelve disciplines, more than two hundred specialists, and your CFO can put any of them on your business at no change to the fee.
Your CFO decides what the month needs and brings it in. No new contract, no new supplier, no change to the fee, and your CFO is still the person you call.
01
Modeling and analysis
Builds the forecast that tells you what next year looks like if the big things go right, and if they go wrong
02
Debt and capital markets
Puts together what your bank actually wants to see, and negotiates the terms with you
03
Transactions
Gets you ready to be bought, or checks what you are buying before you pay for it
04
Systems and data
Makes your accounting system produce the numbers instead of you rebuilding them in spreadsheets
05
Tax and cross-border
Sets the position early and hands it to your tax preparer, instead of finding out in March
06
Risk and insurance
Checks what would actually hurt you, and whether your cover would pay out
07
Costing and inventory
Works out what a job, a product or a truckload really makes after everything is loaded to it
08
Revenue and technical accounting
Fixes how revenue is booked before an auditor or a buyer makes you fix it
09
Practice economics
For firms that bill time: finds where the hours are being written off and by whom
10
Healthcare revenue cycle
Follows the money from the claim to the bank, and finds where it stops
11
Real estate and asset finance
Pulls a group of entities into one set of numbers a lender will accept
12
Procurement and contracts
Finds what you are overpaying suppliers, and which contract auto-renews before you get the chance to argue
When Your CFO Needs More
05 / 05
When the month asks for more than any one CFO can carry, your CFO does not send you out to find it.
This is where a solo fractional CFO runs out and ours does not. A single operator has to find you a supplier, introduce you, and step out of the room. Your CFO reaches into the firm, brings the capability into your engagement, and stays accountable for the result.
“The reporting needs rebuilding, not patching.”
XLF·P
Proprietary Financial Systems
WHAT HAPPENS

Your CFO writes the specification, because they are the one who knows what your board and your lender need to see. The engineers build it to that spec.

WHAT THAT SAVES YOU

No software selection, no implementation partner, no project you have to manage yourself.

“We need capital, and we need to be ready to ask for it.”
XLF·I
invest-EDGE
WHAT HAPPENS

The group’s investment platform — capital raising, deployment and portfolio oversight. The people who talk to capital sit in the same company as the people preparing your numbers for it, so the pack and the conversation are built together.

WHAT THAT SAVES YOU

One story, one set of numbers, and no gap between the people who wrote them and the people presenting them.

“Nobody has tested our cover against what we are actually exposed to.”
XLF·S
XL Shield
WHAT HAPPENS

Insurance and risk transfer, reviewed against the real exposure of the business rather than last year’s schedule — working from the same picture of your operations your CFO already has.

WHAT THAT SAVES YOU

A risk review that starts from your actual numbers instead of a questionnaire.

“The systems need building, not working around.”
XLF·RFL
Rapid Framework Labs
WHAT HAPPENS

Technology build-outs for growing enterprises, from architecture through to delivery. Where the answer is genuinely a build rather than a better spreadsheet, the build happens inside the group.

WHAT THAT SAVES YOU

A delivery team that is already briefed, because the brief came from your own finance lead.

“We have to talk to investors, or to the market.”
XLF·M
XL Media
WHAT HAPPENS

Investor, brand and market-facing communication across the group. The narrative is built on the same numbers your CFO reports, so what you say publicly and what you file reconcile.

WHAT THAT SAVES YOU

A message that matches the accounts, prepared by people who can read both.

“Somebody wants to buy us, or we want to buy something.”
XLF·C
The transactions bench
WHAT HAPPENS

Quality of earnings, diligence management and integration inside the practice, with invest-EDGE alongside on the capital side and the engineering arm on the data room.

WHAT THAT SAVES YOU

A transaction run by the people who already know your numbers, with no new contract to sign.

On Your Desk
What arrives on your desk, and who built it.
Everything below is your CFO’s output. Where a piece needed the bench or the wider firm, that is named — but your CFO owns all of it. Every month or every quarter, under one fee.
WHAT ARRIVESWHO BUILT ITWHAT IT IS
The monthly reporting pack
Your CFO, on reporting built by the engineering arm
The month’s results with a written explanation of why every number moved, against last month and against plan.
The rolling cash view
Your CFO, with the modeling bench
Rebuilt with the week’s actuals in it, reaching far enough ahead to act rather than react.
The board pack
Your CFO, in the format boards and lenders already accept
Built once and used twice, so your board and your lender see the same numbers and neither questions the other.
The lender pack
Your CFO, with the debt and capital markets bench
Covenant position, headroom and the forward view, in the format the lender already trusts.
The close calendar and control documentation
Your CFO, with the systems and controls bench
A close that lands on the same working day and a control environment written down rather than remembered.
The forecast model
The modeling bench, specified by your CFO
A working spreadsheet you own and can change, not a locked file, and it is yours from the day it is built.
The quarter’s one big thing
Drawn from the group
A raise, a refinancing, a risk review, a systems build, a sale process — run by people who already know your numbers, with nothing new to sign.
Five things we put in the agreement that this category does not put anywhere.
CLAUSE 1.1 · CONTINUITY
The CFO and controller who lead the first conversation shall lead the engagement throughout its term, supported by the specialist resources of the firm at no additional fee.
CLAUSE 1.2 · COVER
A named backup is assigned to every seat on the account, carries the file from the first month, and assumes the seat within two business hours of an unplanned absence.
CLAUSE 1.4 · THE STANDARD
Response times, close dates and reporting dates are scheduled figures, not intentions, and a missed close date carries a credit against the month’s fee.
CLAUSE 1.5 · INDEPENDENCE
The firm accepts no referral fee, commission or revenue share from any software vendor, lender, broker or adviser it recommends to a client.
CLAUSE 1.6 · YOUR DATA
Access is granted by role and withdrawn on exit, confidentiality applies by default rather than on request, and everything built on your account — models, documentation, systems — is yours from the day it is built.
CLAUSE 1.8 · FEE
One fixed monthly fee. No hourly billing, no timesheets, no charge for correspondence.
Every one of these is in the agreement you sign, and you can read all six before you decide anything. They are on this page because they are the questions a buyer who has been let down once already knows to ask — and because asking any other firm for the same page is the fastest way to compare us to them.
What Happens Next

The quickest way to see the size of this is to put a real problem in front of it.

Tell us what is actually going on in the business right now. In one conversation we will tell you who your CFO would be, which of the the specialist bench your situation would pull in, and whether any of the sister divisions would be involved. All of it under one fee, and all of it named before you decide anything.
BOOK A CONVERSATIONSEE HOW A MONTH RUNS
ONE HOUR · NO CHARGE · A WRITTEN NOTE BACK WITHIN TWO WORKING DAYS
YOUR CFOWe name the finance chief who would run your function, and why they were chosen for your business.
YOUR BENCHWhich of the twelve disciplines your situation would draw on in the first ninety days.
THE GROUPWhether capital, engineering, risk or media capability is likely to come into it.
THE FEEOne monthly figure covering all of the above, agreed before anything starts.