Know your runway
Understand current cash, burn, committed expenditure and the decisions most likely to shorten or extend runway.
Fractional CFO for founder-led companies
Need CFO-level
judgement?
Sentinel provides ongoing financial leadership for seed-stage and early-growth companies that have outgrown bookkeeping and compliance, but do not yet need — or want to fund — a full-time senior CFO.
Know where the cash is going, what happens next, and what management needs to do about it.
The gap
Your accountant can tell you what happened.
A CFO helps you decide what happens next.
Early-stage companies often reach an awkward point. The bookkeeping is being done. Tax and compliance are covered. Management accounts may even be available. But nobody owns the financial questions that increasingly matter.
“How long will the cash actually last?”
“Can we afford to hire more staff?”
“What happens if revenue arrives three months late?”
“What should the Board and investors be watching?”
The outcome
Better visibility. Better decisions. Fewer financial surprises.
Fractional CFO support creates the financial decision layer between bookkeeping and the founder. The aim is not more reporting. It is better judgement about cash, risk, capital and execution.
Know what changes the forecast
Replace static budgets with a driver-based view of revenue, margins, staffing, CapEx and operating assumptions.
Give the Board numbers it can use
Turn financial and operating data into concise reporting that explains performance, variance, risk and decisions required.
Stay ready for investors
Maintain the model, metrics and evidence needed to answer investor questions without rebuilding everything before the next round of funding.
What changes
Finance stops being something you receive.
It becomes something you use.
The objective is not to create a larger finance department. It is to create enough financial infrastructure and CFO-level judgement for management to make better decisions.
Before
- Cash position known, runway uncertain
- Annual budget, little scenario analysis
- Accounts explain the past
- Board reporting assembled manually
- KPIs scattered across systems
- Hiring decisions made before modelling the cash effect
- Investor questions trigger spreadsheet reconstruction
After
- Rolling cash and runway visibility
- Driver-based forecast with downside scenarios
- Management understands what is changing and why
- Consistent Board reporting
- Defined financial and operating KPIs
- Material decisions tested before commitment
- Investor information kept current
Fractional CFO support
The financial operating system behind the company.
One ongoing mandate covering the financial disciplines management needs to operate with confidence.
Cash & runway
Rolling cash forecasting, burn analysis, working capital and funding timing.
Forecasting & scenarios
Integrated driver-based modelling and decision scenarios tied to operating reality.
Management information
Reporting that connects financial performance with the commercial and operating metrics that drive it.
Board & investor reporting
Structured reporting, variance explanations, risks, milestones and capital deployment.
Financial decisions
Model the effect of hiring, pricing, CapEx, commercial agreements and expansion before capital is committed.
Capital readiness
Keep the model, evidence and management information ready for future equity or debt discussions.
Who it is for
For companies too complex for bookkeeping alone — but not ready for a full-time CFO.
The strongest fit is a founder-led, seed-stage or early-growth company with external capital, early commercial traction and growing financial complexity.
Sentinel is particularly suited to R&D-heavy and capital-intensive businesses where finance has to keep pace with commercialisation, technical milestones, grants, CapEx, working capital and future funding requirements.
When to bring in a Fractional CFO
Usually, the trigger is not accounting.
It is a decision.
The need usually becomes obvious when the founder can no longer answer an important financial question quickly and confidently.
“The Board wants reporting we don't currently have.”
“We're about to hire aggressively and need to know what it does to runway.”
“Our investors are asking questions we cannot answer quickly.”
“The company has grown, but the finance function hasn't kept up.”
“We're not raising today, but we don't want to rebuild everything when we do.”
“We need someone who can challenge the numbers, not just produce them.”
Why Sentinel
CFO judgement with an investigative bias.
Financial models are only as useful as the assumptions underneath them. Sentinel combines CFO experience, financial modelling, valuation, transaction work, technology commercialisation and independent investigation.
R&D to market
CFO experience in R&D-intensive companies progressing from development towards commercialisation, including environmental and advanced automotive technology.
Funding and financial judgement
Experience across equity capital raising, debt funding, acquisitions, valuation, due diligence and project economics.
Test the assumptions
A professional background in audit, forensic work and investigation that naturally focuses attention on evidence, assumptions and inconsistencies.
How it works
Senior financial capability without building a full finance department.
The engagement is designed to establish visibility first, then install the financial decision layer, then operate alongside management on an ongoing basis.
Establish visibility
Review the current financial position, reporting, systems, forecast, runway and information available to management.
Build the decision layer
Establish the forecast, cash view, KPIs, Board reporting and financial routines management actually needs.
Operate with management
Work alongside the founder and leadership team on recurring reporting, decisions, scenarios, capital allocation and investor requirements.
Fractional CFO vs Investment Readiness
One prepares you to raise capital.
The other guides the company's financial success.
These are complementary services, not competing ones. For some companies, an Investment Readiness Programme becomes the starting point for an ongoing Fractional CFO mandate.
Fractional CFO Support
Ongoing cash visibility, forecasting, Board reporting, financial decisions and investor readiness between funding rounds.
Investment Readiness Programme
A structured engagement for companies approaching a funding event that need the financial model, funding requirement, valuation and capital case prepared for scrutiny.
Next step
You probably don't need another financial report.
You need someone who can tell you what the numbers mean.
If your company has outgrown bookkeeping but does not yet require a full-time CFO, we can determine whether fractional support makes sense.
Discuss Fractional CFO Support →