Preferred CFO Review

Hiring a full-time CFO costs anywhere from $200,000 to $400,000 per year in salary alone, before you factor in benefits, equity, and the months it takes to find the right person.

For small and mid-sized businesses that need executive-level financial leadership but can't justify that overhead, Preferred CFO offers a different path.

Founded in 2013 by Jerry Vance and headquartered in Salem, Utah, the firm provides fractional, outsourced, and consulting CFO services to companies across the United States and Canada, along with a separate suite of outsourced HR services.

This review takes a close look at what Preferred CFO offers, who it serves best, and where it fits in the growing market for fractional financial leadership.

Preferred CFO is a financial consulting firm that places experienced CFOs and HR professionals inside businesses on a part-time or project basis.

The core idea is straightforward: companies that need strategic financial guidance but don't have the size or budget to support a full-time CFO can get that expertise through a shared or fractional arrangement.

A client gets a dedicated CFO who works with their leadership team, prepares financial reports, builds forecasting models, and advises on major decisions, but pays only for the time and scope they actually need.

The firm has been operating since 2013 and markets itself as one of the most experienced fractional CFO firms in North America.

Its team includes CFOs with backgrounds across industries including SaaS, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, construction, and professional services.

The CFO side of Preferred CFO's business breaks down into several distinct service categories. Here's a summary of what's available:

Within each engagement, the firm's CFOs work on financial forecasting, budgeting, cash flow optimization, capital structure, KPI development, financial reporting, and accounting oversight.

For companies pursuing investment or preparing for a sale, Preferred CFO also assists with capital raises, M&A preparation, due diligence support, and exit strategy planning.

Patricia Goede, CEO of VisualShare, described working with the firm during a fundraising process: the CFO was available to field questions from investors directly, and she credited the firm's reputation with adding weight to her financial projections.

Preferred CFO's HR division handles the operational side of people management, covering areas that many small businesses either ignore or patch together inefficiently.

Their outsourced HR offering includes:

• Payroll processing
• Benefits administration
• Recruiting and hiring support
• Compliance with changing HR laws
• Performance management systems
• HR technology and system updates

This matters because a business can have tight financials and still lose money through poor hiring, benefits inefficiencies, or payroll errors.

Having the CFO and HR functions managed through the same firm means both sides can align compensation structures, headcount planning, and budget forecasts from the start.

Most outsourced CFO firms don't offer HR at all. Preferred CFO's bundled model is less common in this space.

Preferred CFO is clear about the types of companies that typically reach out to them. Based on their published positioning, the best-fit clients tend to share recognizable patterns:

• Growing companies that have outgrown their bookkeeper but aren't ready to hire a full-time CFO
• Businesses with unpredictable cash flow that need better visibility and planning
• Companies preparing for a fundraise, bank loan, or investor conversation
• Organizations going through a transition such as a leadership change, acquisition, or sale
• Startups that need financial infrastructure built quickly without a six-figure overhead cost

A CEO named Robert T. wrote about engaging Preferred CFO after their controller left unexpectedly.

Within months, the assigned CFO was preparing monthly financials, working with auditors, handling cash flow budgeting for new clinic locations, and supporting payroll.

That kind of flexibility, getting both accounting execution and strategic CFO-level oversight from one firm, is the use case Preferred CFO is built around.

Beyond general CFO and HR services, Preferred CFO offers a set of specialty capabilities worth noting:

Capital Raising: The firm helps businesses identify the right financing mix, prepare investor materials, oversee due diligence, and navigate debt versus equity decisions.

This is a meaningful differentiator because raising capital requires a specific skill set that many fractional CFOs don't specialize in.

M&A and Exit Planning: Whether a business is buying, selling, or merging, Preferred CFO handles analysis, documentation, financial stabilization, and advisory work for the transaction team.

CEO Vince Gonzales described the firm running his entire accounting department and preparing all financials for the eventual sale of his business, calling the process complex but handled with professionalism.

Systems Strategy and Implementation: Preferred CFO also helps businesses select and implement financial software and systems. This is useful for companies scaling quickly and realizing their current tools can't keep up.

Startup and Small Business Services: There's a dedicated focus on early-stage companies that need financial infrastructure established from scratch, including forecasting, cash flow modeling, and financial reporting.

One of the more practical aspects of how Preferred CFO operates is the flexibility of their engagement structure. Clients aren't locked into a single format. The firm offers:

• Ongoing fractional relationships where the CFO attends regular meetings, prepares recurring reports, and functions as a consistent member of the leadership team
• Project-based consulting for businesses that have a specific problem to solve, like preparing for a fundraise or cleaning up financial records before an audit
• Temporary CFO coverage for companies in transition that need someone in the seat while they search for a permanent hire

This flexibility addresses one of the main objections business owners have to outsourcing C-suite functions: the fear of being stuck in a contract that doesn't match what they actually need as the business evolves.

Client reviews on the Preferred CFO website are consistently positive. A few themes come up repeatedly across different testimonials:

• Clients appreciate the responsiveness of their assigned CFO
• Several mention that the assigned professional quickly learned the specifics of their business
• Business owners going through difficult transitions describe Preferred CFO stepping in quickly and stabilizing the situation
• Companies preparing for investor conversations credit the firm with giving their financials more credibility

Emilee M., CEO, described working with a CFO named Wes as a standout experience, citing his competence across finance and accounting, responsiveness, and professionalism.

Jenn G., another CEO, noted that her CFO dove into understanding the business first before starting to drive financial improvements.

These testimonials are self-selected and published on the company's own site, so they should be read with that context in mind.

Still, the consistency of the themes, responsiveness, industry adaptability, and practical execution, is worth noting.

Preferred CFO does not publish fixed pricing on their website. Costs are determined by the scope of the engagement, the seniority of CFO required, the hours involved, and the specific services selected. 

The firm does offer free consultations, which is the standard entry point for new clients.

For reference, the company describes its model as delivering senior-level financial leadership at a fraction of the cost of a full-time CFO, which typically means monthly retainers significantly below the equivalent full-time salary.

Preferred CFO is a well-structured option for small to mid-sized businesses that need genuine CFO-level financial leadership without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire.

The combination of CFO and HR services under one firm, along with flexible engagement formats and a team with cross-industry experience since 2013, makes it a credible choice for companies at a financial inflection point.