Frequently Asked Questions
What operators ask before engaging.
Direct answers to the questions that matter before the call.
How do you bill?
Fixed monthly retainers, scoped to the engagement. We do not bill hourly. Hourly billing punishes efficiency and turns financial advisory into a cost line item to be minimized. Pricing reflects the work and the outcomes, not the clock.
My books are not current or fully organized. Can you still help?
Yes. Many engagements start here, and how this gets handled is one of the things that separates Sterling Equity Partners from typical fractional CFO services. Most firms will either turn you away until your books are clean, or quietly absorb the cleanup into a bloated monthly retainer. We do neither. In Week 1, we assess the state of your books directly. If catch-up work is needed, we either scope a short Financial Foundation engagement (typically 4 to 6 weeks, priced separately and transparently) to bring the financials to the standard CFO work requires, or we coordinate with a qualified bookkeeping partner to handle it in parallel while we begin the strategic work. You do not need to solve this on your own before reaching out, and you do not pay for cleanup hidden inside an advisory fee.
How do engagements typically begin?
One 30 minute call. We review your situation, I show you exactly what we would build, what it costs, and what the first 9 weeks look like. By the end of the call, you have a clear answer on whether to engage and what package fits. Most operators decide on the call. If we move forward, the Cash Flow Package delivers a live 13-week model by Week 5. The Full Financial Package delivers a complete FP&A suite by Week 9.
Will I work directly with you, or with an analyst?
Directly with Federico Nannini. There are no analyst handoffs and no junior staff buffer. The work is delivered by the same person who scoped the engagement and signed the agreement.
How many clients do you serve at once?
Capacity is intentionally limited. Sterling Equity Partners maintains a small active client roster to ensure each engagement receives senior-level attention without dilution. When capacity is full, we maintain a waitlist.
Who do we work with on your team day to day?
Typically your bookkeeper, who we treat as a working partner. Their context on transactions, classifications, and historical decisions is essential to the work, and the strongest engagements treat the bookkeeper as embedded in the process, not bypassed. If you do not have a bookkeeper, we work directly with your controller, finance lead, or the operator. We require read-only access to your accounting system (QuickBooks, NetSuite, Xero, Sage Intacct), bank accounts (via Plaid or direct download), and AR/AP detail. We do not require write access.
What is the minimum engagement length, and why not just hire a CFO?
Three months minimum on the Cash Flow Package, six months on the Full Financial Package. After the minimum, engagements are month-to-month. We do not lock clients into annual contracts. If the work is not delivering value, you should be free to leave. The deeper question is what you actually get for the cost. A full-time CFO hire is one person's experience, instincts, and bandwidth, scoped to your business and limited by it. Sterling Equity Partners brings a productized methodology built on $2.5B+ of M&A advisory, dozens of 13-week cash flow models built across industries, and pattern recognition that cannot be replicated by a single in-house hire. The implementation roadmap is defined, the deliverables are quantified, and the insights have been pressure-tested against businesses operating at far greater complexity than most middle-market companies face. The result is a level of financial visibility and decision support that a typical CFO hire would take 12 to 18 months to build internally, delivered for less than 10% of the cost.
Do you serve Spanish-speaking businesses and family offices?
Yes. Federico is bilingual in English and Spanish. Engagements with Latin American operators, family offices, and bilingual leadership teams are conducted in either language as needed. Reporting deliverables can be produced in English, Spanish, or both.