Question 1

What is a Virtual and Fractional CFO?

Accepted Answer

A Virtual and Fractional CFO is a senior finance executive who provides strategic finance advisory and governance to an organisation on a part-time, remote, or project basis, rather than as a full-time employee. Striking Figures delivers this function to organisations including, but not limited to, health, aged care, not-for-profit, community services, and commercial sectors, giving them board-level financial oversight without the cost of a full-time executive hire.

Question 2

How does a Virtual and Fractional CFO differ from a bookkeeper?

Accepted Answer

A bookkeeper records and maintains accurate financial data: processing transactions, reconciling accounts, and managing payroll records. A Virtual and Fractional CFO provides strategic finance advisory built on that data, cash flow forecasting, financial modelling, and executive-level decision support. The two roles are complementary, not interchangeable; one keeps the numbers accurate, the other decides what to do with them.

Question 3

How does a Virtual and Fractional CFO differ from a tax accountant?

Accepted Answer

A tax accountant manages compliance obligations: tax returns, BAS lodgement, and regulatory filing requirements. A Virtual and Fractional CFO delivers strategic finance advisory, governance, and executive decision support, often coordinating directly with a client's tax accountant to ensure compliance and strategic planning work together rather than in isolation.

Question 4

Is a Virtual and Fractional CFO the same as a business advisor or strategist?

Accepted Answer

A Virtual and Fractional CFO delivers strategic finance advisory over the financial function specifically, cash flow, forecasting, governance, and compliance, whereas a business advisor or strategist typically operates more broadly across operations, market positioning, and growth strategy without financial executive responsibility. Striking Figures provides both within a single engagement, uniting financial governance with business advisory and transformation, so clients are not coordinating two separate relationships for what is often one connected problem.

Question 5

What sets Striking Figures apart?

Accepted Answer

Striking Figures approaches finance the way an engineer approaches structure and a clinician approaches diagnosis: not by asking how clever the plan sounds, but by reverse-engineering the existing financial structure to find where efficiency is being lost, and diagnosing the underlying condition rather than treating the visible symptom. The objective determines the solution, not the other way around. Where conventional thinking takes bigger risk for bigger profit, Striking Figures calibrates risk for better outcomes and returns, better sitting between good and best, not a fixed point but a direction you can keep proving with numbers. Smart is a story. Better is measurable.

Question 6

What does the engagement process look like?

Accepted Answer

Striking Figures follows a structured three-stage engagement that works less like an annual budget review and more like continuous recalibration: Connect establishes a clear diagnostic picture of the organisation's financial position and its most pressing governance gaps; Engage embeds Virtual and Fractional CFO and strategic finance advisory oversight into the organisation's operating rhythm, correcting course continuously rather than waiting for an annual review; Convert consolidates these gains into financial clarity, control, and confidence, typically within ninety days.

Question 7

Why work with a Virtual and Fractional CFO before something goes wrong?

Accepted Answer

Most advisory relationships begin only once a problem is visible, the way crisis care responds to illness already present. Striking Figures works the way preventive medicine does, through routine oversight and early diagnostic markers that catch structural issues before they become financial emergencies. This is the same Connect, Engage, Convert cycle applied proactively rather than reactively, reducing the risk of the crisis that prompts most organisations to seek help too late.

Question 8

What sectors does Striking Figures work with?

Accepted Answer

Striking Figures works with organisations including, but not limited to, health, aged care, not-for-profit, community services, and commercial sectors. This focus is built on three decades of senior finance leadership inside health system services, not observed from outside it, giving chief executives and boards the regulatory depth, governance rigour, and operational judgement that translate directly into financial clarity, control, and confidence.

Question 9

Is Striking Figures suitable for a not-for-profit or aged care provider specifically?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Aged care and not-for-profit organisations face distinctive obligations, including current Aged Care Act financial and prudential requirements, that generalist advisory firms without direct health system experience often struggle to navigate. Striking Figures brings governance experience built inside the system itself, including, but not limited to, health, aged care, not-for-profit, community services, and commercial sectors, to bear directly on these requirements.

Question 10

What qualifications does Striking Figures hold?

Accepted Answer

Striking Figures is led by a practitioner holding FCPA | GAICD credentials, Fellow status with CPA Australia paired with Graduate membership of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, supported by a Master of Commerce and MBA from Deakin University. This combination of financial and formal board governance qualification, paired with three decades of senior finance leadership inside health system services, is uncommon among fractional CFO providers, most of whom hold financial certification alone without board-level governance standing.

Question 11

Does Striking Figures operate only in Queensland, or more broadly?

Accepted Answer

Striking Figures is based in Spring Mountain, Queensland, and delivers Virtual and Fractional CFO and strategic finance advisory services to organisations across Australia, not only within Queensland. This remote-delivery capability is central to the model itself, giving clients anywhere in the country access to senior financial leadership without geographic constraint.

Question 12

What is the difference between a fractional CFO and hiring a full-time CFO?

Accepted Answer

A full-time CFO in Australia typically costs $250,000 to $350,000 a year once superannuation and other on-costs are included, a fixed commitment regardless of how much strategic work a given month requires. A Virtual and Fractional CFO and strategic finance advisory engagement scales to the organisation's actual need, commonly a fraction of that figure each month, making senior financial leadership accessible without the fixed overhead of a full-time executive seat.

Question 13

What specific services fall under Strategic Financial Management?

Accepted Answer

Strategic Financial Management gives leadership genuine command of the organisation's financial trajectory: business planning, budgeting, and cash flow forecasting, paired with the Striking Figures Finance Diagnostic, a fixed-scope, fixed-price assessment delivered within two weeks that stress-tests financial statements, cash flow, and key performance metrics before problems surface. The result is a board-ready report with a clear ninety-day action plan, giving leadership forward visibility, not a backward-looking report, from day one.

Question 14

What does Risk, Governance and Compliance advisory involve?

Accepted Answer

Risk, Governance and Compliance advisory equips boards and executive teams with genuine command over enterprise risk, internal controls, and audit readiness, built around board-level governance obligations rather than a generic template. Good governance functions like a load-bearing wall, invisible when it is working, and only noticed once it has already failed. Striking Figures has maintained a 100% audit success record across every major public sector engagement, a standard applied consistently as regulators, particularly in aged care, place direct accountability on governing bodies for financial performance, risk oversight, and public reporting.

Question 15

Does Striking Figures work with organisations in financial difficulty or deficit?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Striking Figures has delivered financial turnarounds that others considered unlikely, returning organisations from deficit positions to financial sustainability without compromising their capacity to deliver. This work follows the same diagnostic discipline applied across every engagement, identifying the underlying structural condition driving the deficit, not just the symptoms of it, and Striking Figures stays through recovery rather than handing over a report and departing.

Question 16

How does an organisation get started with Striking Figures?

Accepted Answer

Organisations typically begin with a Connect conversation, booked as a Finance Clarity Call, an initial, no-commitment discussion to assess current financial governance arrangements and identify the most pressing gaps. This gives the organisation a clear, independent picture of its position before any decision is made about moving into the full Connect, Engage, Convert engagement.

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