This YouTube talk by Charles Leikauf argues that owners of accounting firms should transition to offering fractional CFO services. He contrasts hourly, commodity-priced accounting work (examples: $50/hour) with monthly retainer fractional CFO pricing (example: $7,500/month), lists operational benefits (fewer last-minute crises, less scope creep, more client respect and higher margins), and recommends adopting AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) to scale and increase profitability. The clip ends with a call-to-action to visit profitsearchgroup.com for certification and custom AI advisors.
Chapters
If you own an accounting firm, I'm going to show you exactly why you want to be a fractional CFO firm. $50 an hour or 7,500 bucks a month, you don't really get any respect because they view you as a commodity. Clients are always begging to work with you because they come to you with a burning problem. When you're a CFO firm, you can make significantly more if you're using AI. So right now, if you own an accounting firm, maybe you're earning by the hour, you're getting paid an hourly rate. Sometimes it's as low as $50 an hour or significantly less. If you're a fractional CFO, you're getting paid by the month you sell retainers and not hourly work. Hourly work creates an adversarial relationship between you and the client. That means as you guys are acting like this because they're trying to get you to work the least amount of hours as possible and you don't get paid more unless you work more. Whereas fractional cfo, you're incentivized to work as little as possible to give them good results. So it's 50 bucks an hour or 7,500 bucks a month. The next thing, if you're an accounting firm, oftentimes you are hourly instead of flat fee. Flat fee puts you out of that adversarial relationship that we were talking about. The next thing is accounting firms get last minute requests. How many times you got an April 15, hey, I need my tax return on and I need the last year bookkeeping keeping done or October 15th or the other deadlines that they are. You have last minute requests. The fractional cfo because there's no true large financial emergencies, right? Because it needs to file their tax return tomorrow. As a fractional CFO firm, you, you just send your calendar link and you let them book on it when they get to you because you have a monthly retainer. The next thing is an accounting firm is you don't really get any respect because they view you as a commodity. Commodities are easily replaceable. One ear of corn as good as the other ear of corn. One bar of gold is the same as another bar of gold. Now if you're different, if you offer advisory services, you're not just doing commodity based work. You're creating value. You actually get to deny a lot of scope creep, which is helpful because clients buy A, you sell them A, which is a fractional CFO intensive. They don't get B, they don't get C, they don't Get d. Oftentimes when you work with a client because they ask you for so much, you end up having scope creep. So if you're a fractional CFO firm owner, you deny scope creep. The next thing is accounting firms. They don't really get clients. They get referrals, but they don't get a lot. If you wanted to pull your lever more tomorrow, you couldn't do so with a fractional CFO firm. Clients are always begging to work with you because they come to you with a burning problem. Outside of I need to generate a tax return, most people have no reason to talk to an accounting firm. People who talk to CFO firms own businesses that do several million dollars a year, and they have a burning problem. Well, if someone has a burning problem, I'm willing to pay a whole lot more to remove a tooth that's hurting my mouth than I was. If I just need a tooth cleaning, I would get it sooner and I would pay more for it. Same thing I do with a fractional CFO firm. The final thing is here, accounting firms. Yeah, maybe you earn 5, $10,000 a month. It's not bad. But the amount of work that you have to do there is so significantly higher when you're a CFO firm, you can make significantly more if you're using AI. Now, if you're not using AI to leverage and build your firm, one of the things I highly recommend you do is get into ChatGPT. Get in Claude, get into Gemini, and start using it. Now, we have our own custom advisors and ChatGPT agents that we've used and built to help our clients. And we can share them with you if you become a client of ours@profitsearchgroup.com. so if you want to learn more about how to get certified as a fractional cfo, grow your fractional CFO firm and use AI to help serve your clients. Go check us out at profitsearchgroup. Com.
