AlpyneBryan McGowanFractional CFO
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Fractional CFO and accounting for SaaS companies

I'm Bryan McGowan. I've been a CFO for 15 years, and I'm an engineer. I run finance and accounting for SaaS companies, and I build the systems underneath it on software I wrote, set up around how your business actually bills and sells. Revenue recognized straight off your billing system. MRR and ARR that tie to the ledger. CAC payback and gross margin you can defend in a board meeting. Runway you can plan a raise on.

I also run the finance for a SaaS company of my own, so I know these numbers from both sides of the board table.

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Free intro call · From $3,000 a month · Month to month

Systems I work with:StripeChargebeeSalesforceHubSpotQuickBooks Online

How it fits together
  • BillingStripe, Chargebee
  • CRMSalesforce, HubSpot
  • BankDeposits, payouts, cards
AlpyneMatching and rulesAI agents
LedgerQuickBooks Online
Bryan reviewsExceptions only
ReportsMRR, runway, board pack

What you get.

Revenue recognized off your billing system.

An annual contract gets paid up front and earned over twelve months. When invoices hit revenue the day they're sent, the P&L spikes in renewal months, deferred revenue is missing from the balance sheet, and the numbers fall apart the first time an investor or acquirer runs diligence.

Here every invoice and subscription in your billing system books to deferred revenue and recognizes month by month, on the schedule the contract sets. Implementation and services revenue follows its own rules. The deferred revenue balance rolls forward every month and ties to the ledger, so the schedule an auditor asks for already exists.

Illustrative example · October
Opening deferred revenue
$412,000
Billings in October
$186,000
Revenue recognized in October
−$171,500
Closing deferred revenue
$426,500 ties to ledger

Example: $36,000 annual contract billed Oct 1 · $3,000 recognized each month through Sep

Booked on invoice date, October revenue would read $186,000, overstated by $14,500.

MRR and ARR that tie to the ledger.

The billing tool says one MRR, the board deck says another, and the P&L says something else. Nobody can explain the gap, so nobody trusts the number the company is valued on.

MRR is built customer by customer from the billing system and reconciled to recognized subscription revenue every month. The bridge shows where growth came from: new customers, expansion, contraction and churn. Retention, churn and ARR come from the same data, and the definitions are written down and set around how you sell.

Illustrative example · October
Illustrative example: the October MRR bridge from starting to ending MRR, by new, expansion, contraction and churn
LineMRRChange
Starting MRR$139,000
New+$9,800
Expansion+$4,600
Contraction−$1,900
Churn−$3,500
Ending MRR$148,000
ARR$1,776,000

Subscription revenue recognized in October: $148,000, matched customer by customer. The other $23,500 of October revenue is implementation, kept outside MRR.

Unit economics you can defend.

Growth costs money before it pays back. When sales and marketing spend, hosting and support costs sit in the wrong accounts, CAC payback and gross margin are guesses, and the first person to check them is a diligence team.

Costs are classified so cost of revenue holds hosting, support and the third-party software you resell, and sales and marketing holds everything it takes to win a customer. CAC payback and gross margin come straight from the ledger every quarter, with the definitions shown. You see when new spend stops buying growth before you approve the next hire or the next campaign.

Illustrative example
Illustrative example: three quarters of sales and marketing spend, new MRR, gross margin and CAC payback in months
QuarterSales and marketingS&MNew MRRGross marginCAC payback (months) = S&M ÷ (new MRR × gross margin)
Q1$210,000$22,00078%12.2 months
Q2$245,000$21,50076%15.0 months
Q3$290,000$19,00074%20.6 months

Sales and marketing up 38%, new MRR down 14%, payback from 12 to 21 months.

Runway you can plan a raise on.

Annual prepayments make the bank balance look healthier than the business is. Collected cash includes service you still owe, renewals land in lumps, and burn swings month to month.

You see cash, net burn and runway on any day you ask, with renewals, payroll and big commitments laid out across the next 13 weeks and the next 18 months. Plan the raise from the runway, and walk into every board meeting and investor call with numbers that tie.

Illustrative example
Cash in bank
$2,140,000
Net burn, 3-month average
−$118,000 a month
Runway at current burn
18 months
Annual renewals due, next 90 days
$312,000

Cash in bank includes $426,500 of deferred revenue, prepaid service you still owe customers.

Available with each engagement

General accounting and bookkeeping
Transactions coded, accounts reconciled, month end closed, on accrual.
Revenue recognition policy and schedules (ASC 606)
A written policy for subscriptions, implementation and services, and the deferred revenue schedules that follow it.
Sales commission tracking
Commissions calculated from closed deals and, where the policy calls for it, capitalized and amortized over the contract.
Budget and operating plan
A plan by department and hire, with the model that shows what each one does to burn and runway.
Board decks and investor updates
The monthly and quarterly pack, with every number tied to the ledger and the same definitions each time.
Fundraising support and data room
The model, the metrics and the data room, with the numbers prepared to survive diligence.
Cash forecasting
A rolling 13-week cash view and an 18-month runway plan, with renewals and payroll laid out by week.

Recognize your numbers in this? Bring them to the call.

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A CFO who writes software.

Without engineering, the usual answer to billing data that doesn't match the ledger is a spreadsheet someone rebuilds every month. I'm an electrical engineer who spent time at Intel, and I wrote Alpyne, the platform my practice runs on. I run it as a SaaS business, so I live with the same billing, revenue and churn questions you do. When a company needs revenue off the billing system, an MRR bridge that ties or a board pack that builds itself, I build it to fit that company.

  • Agents do the routine work. They match payouts and deposits to invoices, classify spend and post the recurring entries. When a line needs an answer only you have, it comes to you as a question with the transaction attached. I review the exceptions and the numbers behind decisions.
  • It fits your stack. Stripe, Chargebee, Salesforce, HubSpot, QuickBooks Online and your bank. If you run something else, I connect it.
  • It's built around how you operate. Your contracts, your pricing, your revenue policy and the metric definitions your board uses. No two companies get the same setup.

What a fractional CFO for a SaaS company costs.

A fixed-fee setup, then a monthly fee, month to month. You get the scope, price and timeline in writing before anything starts.

Setup

Fixed fee from $5,000

Handover from your bookkeeper, revenue recognition and deferred revenue set up off your billing system, MRR reconciled to the ledger, and the close.

Ongoing

From $3,000 a month, month to month

I run the finance function, keep the systems current and meet with you on cash, growth, unit economics and the board.

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The same terms as for any other business: how I work with any company. No long-term contract. Standalone system access after the engagement is $499 a month.

Bryan McGowan, fractional CFO

Meet Bryan McGowan.

I've been a CFO for 15 years and have raised more than $250M. I founded Open Water Power, an energy hardware company, and sold it to L-3. Before that I was an engineer at Intel. Cornell engineering and MBA. I write the software my practice runs on.

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Questions SaaS founders ask first.

What does a fractional CFO do for a SaaS company?

A fractional CFO runs the finance function part time: the books, the close, revenue recognition, SaaS metrics, cash and runway, and the numbers behind decisions. For a SaaS company that also means reconciling billing to the ledger, building the MRR bridge, measuring CAC payback and gross margin, and preparing the board and investor reporting.

How should a SaaS company recognize revenue?

Recognize subscription revenue evenly over the service period, and hold anything billed in advance as deferred revenue until it's earned. Implementation and services revenue follow their own rules, set by your contracts. Confirm the policy with your CPA. Whatever it is, the schedule should come from your billing system, so nobody has to rebuild it in a spreadsheet.

Why doesn't my MRR match revenue?

MRR is a run rate at a point in time, and revenue is what you earned in the period. Discounts, mid-month starts and cancellations, one-time fees and implementation revenue all open a gap between them. The fix is to build MRR customer by customer from billing and reconcile it to recognized subscription revenue every month, so every difference has a name.

How do you calculate CAC payback?

Divide sales and marketing spend for a period by the new MRR it produced times gross margin. The answer is the number of months a new customer takes to pay back what it cost to win. It only holds up if sales and marketing costs and cost of revenue are classified correctly in the ledger.

When does a SaaS company need a CFO?

Usually when the founder is making decisions on numbers they don't trust, when a raise or a board is asking for metrics, or when the books need to survive diligence. Most companies between $1M and $15M ARR need CFO work several days a month, which is what a fractional engagement covers.

Can you help with a fundraise?

Yes. I build the model, the metrics and the data room, and I prepare the numbers for diligence so they tie the first time someone checks. I've raised more than $250M across my career.

Do our books need to be clean before you start?

No. Cleanup is part of setup when it's needed, including rebuilding deferred revenue from your billing history.

Do you replace our bookkeeper or accounting firm?

I can take over from an outsourced bookkeeper or firm, or work alongside an in-house team and build the systems they run.

What happens to the systems if we stop working together?

They keep running. You can keep the system on its own for $499 a month, and your books stay in your QuickBooks. Nothing is locked to me.

What systems do you work with?

Stripe, Chargebee, Salesforce, HubSpot, QuickBooks Online and your bank. If you run something else, ask. Most systems I can connect.

How long does setup take?

Most setups take two to four weeks.

How much does it cost?

Setup is a fixed fee from $5,000. Ongoing work is from $3,000 a month, month to month.

Anything not answered here, ask me directly.

Book a 30-minute call

Book a free call with Bryan.

Thirty minutes. Tell me how revenue gets booked and what your MRR says today, and I'll tell you straight whether I can help.

Book a 30-minute call
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