Part-Time CFO

Yes, the terms are interchangeable. A part-time or fractional CFO is a senior finance leader engaged on a defined cadence — typically 1–8 days per month — to deliver strategic finance, governance, and stakeholder-reporting work that a full-time CFO would do, sized to a company that does not yet justify the full-time hire. It is not a bookkeeper, a controller, or a tax advisor — it is the function that sits above all three.

Most startups become ready between Seed and Series A. Practical signals: cash runway under 12 months without a clear extension plan, fundraise targeted within 6 months, month-end close taking longer than 10 working days, recurring forecast variance above 20%, or board and investor questions the founder cannot confidently answer. With clean books in place, a part-time CFO typically delivers cash-flow clarity, reporting cadence, and a KPI framework within the first 30–60 days.

A full-time CFO in Bangkok at comparable seniority commands total compensation in the high-six to low-seven-figure THB range annually plus equity. A part-time engagement typically costs 20–35% of that for the same governance and strategic work, sized to companies that do not yet need 5 days per week of CFO attention. Most companies in the THB 30–500M revenue range are better served fractional until they hit approximately THB 500M or a complexity inflection: multi-entity, multi-jurisdiction, or IPO-track.

Because a CFO needs reliable, current books to add strategic value. Without monthly accounting closes within 10 working days — accruals and provisions properly booked, FX revaluation complete — most of the CFO's hours get absorbed cleaning data instead of analysing it. Clients with a pre-existing accounting provider can keep them; clients without typically take Plizz's bookkeeping package, which starts at THB 9,900 per month for the first 6 months for companies incorporated through Plizz Group.

A part-time CFO advises and prepares; the company's authorised director or signatory continues to sign. Plizz's CFOs do not act as appointed accountants on the DBD record, nor as company directors. The boundary is deliberate and protects both the client and Plizz. For statutory accountant services see Bookkeeping.

Plizz maps local TFRS-for-NPAEs (or Full TFRS) accounts to the parent's IFRS or US GAAP chart, runs the monthly close to the parent's reporting calendar, handles FX translation and intercompany reconciliations, and prepares both the local board pack and the Group reporting pack in parallel. Plizz's DFK International membership means the same accountability chain works in 100+ countries — useful for groups consolidating multiple Asian subsidiaries.

Strategic finance advice from someone who has sat in the CFO seat through a fundraise, an audit dispute, a lender renegotiation, or an exit is materially different from advice generated by a consultant who has only observed those events. Benoît Meneau and Jérôme Le Louer held CFO roles at listed and private companies across SEA, South Asia, Middle East, and Africa before founding the firm. This shapes how engagements are scoped, how board packs are written, and how trade-offs are framed when what the rule says and what the business needs diverge.

Probably not productively until the books are migrated. Excel-based books typically miss accruals, lack reconciliation discipline, and cannot be audited without expensive remediation. Plizz will usually recommend a 4–8 week bookkeeping migration to Xero or comparable software as a precondition, then start the CFO engagement on a clean foundation. Skipping this step compresses the value the CFO can deliver.

The typical trigger is a combination of revenue and complexity: most companies become full-time-CFO-justified at THB 500M+ revenue, when they have multiple legal entities or jurisdictions to manage, when they are on an IPO track, or when they are past Series B with institutional-investor governance expectations. Until those thresholds, a fractional engagement delivers the same strategic layer without the operational overhead of a full-time hire.