A CFO for the days you need one.
Most growing businesses do not need a full-time chief financial officer. They need the thinking a CFO does: numbers that arrive early enough to act on, a cash forecast that looks forward, and someone experienced in the room when the decision is expensive. That is the job, and you can buy it by the month.
Rated 4.9 from 520+ Google reviews · Chartered Accountants · Xero Platinum Partner
Your accountant is accountable for last year. A CFO is accountable for this one.
Compliance tells you what already happened, correctly and on time. It does not tell you whether to take the contract, hire the third person, or raise your prices - and those are the decisions that actually move the business. That gap is the whole job.
Reporting you can act on
Not a pack you file. The three or four numbers that decide your next month, with the reason they moved and what to do about it.
A rolling twelve-month cash forecast
Updated monthly, not rebuilt in a panic. You see the tight month while there is still time to do something about it.
The handful of KPIs that matter
Chosen for your business, tracked consistently, and cut back when one stops earning its place on the page.
Someone in the room for the expensive decisions
The hire, the lease, the equipment, the acquisition. Judgement from someone who has run a finance function, not only advised on one.
Who you actually get.
You are buying someone's judgement, so you should know whose. Kelly runs the engagement month to month, with Chris and James behind her when a decision reaches past the numbers.
Kelly Walker
Virtual CFO
Kelly spent close to three years as Chief Financial Officer of a commercial construction group, leading financial strategy, budgeting and forecasting across four entities through growth, restructuring and change. Working alongside directors, management and procurement, she strengthened cash flow, improved reporting and reduced risk, and owned the internal processes underneath all of it.
That hands-on CFO background is what she brings to the table now. She runs the engagement herself: the reporting pack, the rolling forecast, and the person across the table each month, with the same commercially minded advice a full-time CFO would give you and none of the payroll.
Chris Tinta
Co-Founder & Managing Director
Chartered Accountant, and the technical backstop. When a forecast runs into a structure question, a Division 7A problem or a tax position that changes the answer, Chris is in the same firm rather than on the end of an email chain.
James Webb
Co-Founder & Director
James built the group so a business owner gets one connected team instead of five suppliers who have never spoken. When a decision needs bookkeeping, finance or wealth behind it, that is one conversation.
What Kelly’s clients say, in their words.
“Link Accounting and Kelly Walker have been an absolute game-changer for my business. Since joining them in April 2025, Kelly and the team have diligently corrected the errors left by our previous accountant and rebuilt our books…”
“Kelly is our Advisor at Link. We have been with Link now for about a year and have been more than impressed with their professionalism.”
“Since engaging Link Accounting and Kelly Walker our financial systems at custom jewellery designs, compliance, and day-to-day operations now run more smoothly and confidently as a business”
Quoted verbatim. All 520+ reviews.
What lands, and when.
A CFO engagement is a rhythm, not a report. This is the standing shape of it, and it starts the month you sign rather than after a discovery phase you pay for.
- 01
Month one
We get the numbers trustworthy: the chart of accounts restructured for reporting, the reporting pack built, and an honest read on where the business actually makes and loses money. You get a written baseline you can argue with. Catching up a ledger that is behind is separate work, quoted by LINK Books before it starts.
- 02
Every month
Management reporting within days of month end, not weeks. A rolling twelve-month cash forecast updated with what actually happened. A meeting that ends in decisions, and the phone in between.
- 03
Every quarter
The step back: performance against the plan, pricing and margin, the KPI set retuned as the business changes, and the tax position sighted early enough to do something about it.
- 04
When it matters
In the room for the expensive decisions. A lender's questions answered before they are asked, an acquisition modelled properly, a partner bought in or out, a bad quarter navigated with a plan instead of a panic.
What eighteen months of this actually did.
A South East Queensland trade contracting business, $6.2 million in revenue, a full order book and no way to tell which jobs made money. The work did not change. The information did.
Case study · Trade contracting$6 million in revenue, and no idea which jobs made money.Gross margin 24.1% to 27.3%. Net profit $186,000 to $322,000. See what changed
The background
Owner-operator, fifteen years in, 38 staff across two crews. Solid reputation, repeat commercial clients, growth every year since 2019. The owner was not drowning — he worked the hours most owners work and paid himself properly. On any normal measure the business was doing fine.
The challenge
Fine was the problem. Quotes were built off a labour recovery rate set in 2021 and never revisited, then a standard margin added on top. Actual job costs were never compared back to quoted costs, so nobody knew which of the eleven job types earned their keep and which were being carried. There was no budget, which meant no benchmark, which meant a good month and a bad month looked identical until the year was over. Cash sat in receivables and the overdraft got used nine months out of twelve.
The approach
Two things had to exist before anything else was worth doing: costing that reached job level, and a budget to measure against. We put a Virtual CFO into the business at a fixed $3,800 a month, structured around a deliberate first 100 days — momentum in an advisory engagement is won or lost early. LINK Books rebuilt the ledger first, because job costing off a messy chart of accounts produces confident nonsense.
The first 100 days
Days 1–30
Get the numbers trustworthy
The chart of accounts was rebuilt around jobs rather than bank feeds, the reporting pack was built, and the owner received a written baseline he could argue with. Nothing was recommended in month one that the numbers could not carry.
Days 31–70
Get the costing real
Twelve months of completed work was rebuilt at actual cost and compared back to quote for the first time in fifteen years. Four of the eleven job types were under-recovering: the 2021 labour rate had not moved while wages climbed close to 15%, so every hour quoted was losing ground. The quoting template was rebuilt to carry real overhead instead of a rounded-up guess.
Days 71–100
Get the budget committed
A twelve-month budget was built bottom up off the pipeline, agreed in writing, and turned into a monthly variance report. The owner walked out of day 100 knowing what the year was meant to look like, month by month.
Then the rhythm took over
Management pack within five business days of month end, actual against budget on every line, a rolling cash forecast updated with what actually happened, and a quarterly step back. Labour recovery rates were reset. One job type was priced properly and the client stayed. Another was retired and the crew redeployed onto work that already paid, which held revenue roughly flat while margin climbed. Progress claims moved to fortnightly.
Eighteen months to June 2026
- Gross margin
- 24.1%27.3%
- Net profit
- $186,000$322,000
- Net margin
- 3.0%5.2%
- Debtor days
- 6251
- Overdraft drawn
- 9 months a year2
- Actual against budget
- no budgetinside 5%
Every job now costed at completion against quote, within days. The working week did not change much. That was never the point.
“Turns out four of our eleven job types were carrying the other seven. Nobody had ever checked.”
Plenty of businesses are profitable without knowing where the profit comes from. Job level costing tells you which work to chase and which to price properly. A budget tells you, in month three, whether the year is going the way you planned — while there is still time to do something about it.
A real engagement. We do not name the client, and the figures are theirs rather than a worked example. This one ran at $3,800 a month, inside the $3,000 and $6,500 band most engagements land in. See how the pricing works.
What a virtual CFO costs, before you ask.
We believe in price transparency, so here is ours. A virtual CFO at LINK starts at $2,000 a month. Most engagements land between $3,000 and $6,500, and what moves the number is how often we meet and how many entities are in the group. What does not move it is the state of your books: if they are behind, that is a one-off clean-up with LINK Books, quoted separately, and the CFO fee stays the CFO fee. These figures are indicative: they firm up once we understand the requirements and the time the job actually takes, and the fee is then agreed in writing before we start. It includes the phone calls in between.
Indicative CFO fee
$0 to $0
plus GST, per month, and still building
- Entities
- Not answered
- Revenue
- Not answered
- Cadence
- Not answered
- Books
- Not answered
Tap an answer and the range moves. No email address required, and nothing here is a quote until we have talked.
Indicative, and deliberately a range rather than a single figure. We confirm a fixed monthly fee in writing before anything starts, and it does not change without a conversation. If the books are behind, that does not change the number above — the catch-up is quoted separately as a one-off by LINK Books, because rebuilding history is a project, not a permanent surcharge. Send your answers either way. Looking for accounting, tax and compliance instead? That is priced separately here.
A full-time CFO
A total package of $250,000 to $350,000, plus superannuation, recruitment, leave, software and the cost of getting the hire wrong. The right answer eventually, and an expensive answer early.
A virtual CFO
From $2,000 a month, fixed, with no on-costs and no notice period beyond the one in the engagement letter. You buy the judgement and the cadence, not the chair.
Nothing
The most common option, and the one that costs the most. Businesses rarely fail from a bad decision made with good numbers; they fail from good decisions made too late.
When you need one, and when you do not.
We would rather tell you it is too early than take a fee for twelve months of reports you do not read.
You probably need one
Profitable on paper but cash keeps surprising you. Pricing set by instinct or by what the last competitor charged. About to borrow, buy, sell or bring in a partner. Reporting that arrives too late to change anything. A finance team doing the work with nobody senior reading it.
You probably do not, yet
Bookkeeping is behind, in which case fix that first: a CFO cannot forecast off numbers nobody trusts. The business is genuinely simple and stable. Or the real gap is a good accountant and a quarterly advisory session, which costs a fraction of this and may be all you need.
Brisbane based, and it does not matter where you are.
We run CFO services in Brisbane from our Fortitude Valley office, and the same engagement runs unchanged for businesses up and down South East Queensland. Virtual describes how the reporting gets done, not a rule about where we are allowed to be: if you would rather we came to you, we will. Some of the most useful hours in this job are spent in the business rather than on a screen.
Brisbane and the inner suburbs
Our office is in Fortitude Valley and we are happy to come to yours instead — the office, the workshop, the yard, wherever the business actually happens. Plenty of Brisbane clients still take the monthly meeting by video because it is an hour they get back. Your call, and the pack is the same either way.
Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast
Virtual CFO services on the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast run on exactly the same cadence: the pack within days of month end, the forecast updated with what actually happened, and a standing monthly meeting. We come up or down the highway to sit with you on site when that is the more useful way to do it, and the drive does not change your fixed fee.
The rest of Australia
The service was built remote from the start, which is where the word virtual comes from. Different state, different time zone, no difference to the engagement — and we will still get on a plane when something genuinely calls for being there. What matters is whether your bookkeeping is current, not which postcode it is kept in.
Site visits are part of the service, not an upsell. Walking a job, sitting with the person who does the invoicing, or spending an afternoon in the office at the start of an engagement tells you things a management pack never will — and it is usually where the useful questions come from.
One thing worth saying plainly, because it is the question behind the question: a local accountant and a virtual CFO are not competing for the same seat. If you already have an accountant on the Coast you are happy with, keep them. The CFO engagement runs on your numbers wherever they are kept.
A CFO is only as good as the bookkeeping underneath.
Forecasts are built on last month's numbers, so if those are late or wrong the forecast is decoration. LINK Books keeps the ledger current and reconciled, LINK Advisors handles the structure and the tax, and the CFO works off both. When a decision needs finance behind it, LINK Advance is in the same building. That is one conversation instead of three, and nobody bills you to email each other.
Frequently asked questions.
How much does a virtual CFO cost in Australia?
A virtual CFO is a fixed monthly fee, not an hourly rate. Ours starts at $2,000 a month, and most engagements sit between $3,000 and $6,500 depending on how often you want the meeting and how many entities are involved. Messy books do not raise the fee: if the bookkeeping is behind, LINK Books quotes a one-off catch-up first and the CFO engagement starts once the numbers are trustworthy. The fee is agreed in writing before anything starts and does not move without a conversation. For comparison, a full-time CFO in Australia is a total package of $250,000 to $350,000 before recruitment, on-costs and the risk of hiring the wrong one.
What does a virtual CFO actually do?
Four things, monthly. Turns your bookkeeping into management reporting you can act on. Maintains a rolling cash forecast so you know what next quarter looks like, not just last month. Sets and tracks the handful of numbers that actually move your business. And sits in the room when a decision is hard: pricing, a hire, a lease, an acquisition, a bank facility. What they do not do is the bookkeeping or the tax return, which is why the fee works.
What is the difference between a virtual CFO, a fractional CFO and a part-time CFO?
In Australian practice, nothing meaningful. Virtual CFO usually implies the work is done remotely, fractional CFO implies a share of a full-time role, part-time CFO implies set days, and interim CFO implies covering a gap while you recruit. They describe the same service with different emphasis, and firms pick the label they like. Ask about the cadence, the deliverables and the fee instead of the title.
Is a virtual CFO different from my accountant?
Yes, and you probably want both. Your accountant is accountable for compliance: the financial statements, the tax return, the structure. A CFO is accountable for the decisions in between, and works off forward numbers rather than last year's. At LINK the two sit in the same firm, so the CFO is not spending your money asking your accountant for a file.
Is a CFO more senior than a CA or CPA?
They are different things. CA and CPA are professional qualifications; CFO is a job. Most CFOs hold one of those qualifications, but the role is about commercial judgement and running a finance function, not the letters after a name. Ask what the person has actually been responsible for.
When does a business need a CFO?
The usual trigger is not revenue, it is complexity. You need one when the decisions have got bigger than the reporting: when cash is unpredictable despite the business being profitable, when you are pricing on instinct, when you are about to borrow, buy or bring in a partner, or when you cannot answer "what happens to cash if this goes wrong" without a week of work. Plenty of businesses under $2m need one, and plenty over $10m do not yet.
Do we have to switch accountants to use your CFO service?
No. The CFO engagement runs on your numbers wherever they are kept, and plenty of clients keep their existing accountant. It works better when the bookkeeping is clean and current, so if yours is not, we will say so before we start rather than bill you to find out.
Can you work with businesses outside Brisbane?
Yes. The service is designed to run remotely, which is where the word virtual comes from, and our CFO services are based in Brisbane. But remote is the default rather than the rule: we are happy to come to your office, your workshop or your site, on the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast as well as around Brisbane, and site visits are part of the engagement rather than an extra. Nothing about the monthly pack or the forecast depends on being in the room, and plenty of the useful conversations happen better when we are.
Start with the numbers you already have.
Send us a recent profit and loss and balance sheet and we will tell you what a CFO would do with them first, and whether you need one yet.
Or call 07 3899 8311.