Business services — Advisory

Business Advisory & Virtual CFO

A practical, recurring advisory engagement for Australian SMEs — cash flow, management reporting, tax-planning cadence, director drawings, loan-readiness and business decisions, scoped together by a Chartered Accountant and registered tax agent.

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Growing SMEs
Director-led businesses
Family-owned
Loan-readiness
Hills District + Sydney

Eternity Group Accountants provides business advisory and BAS services as a registered tax agent (TPB 25523469). Information on this page is general in nature and does not take into account your specific business circumstances. Engagement scope, fees and deliverables are confirmed in a written engagement letter before work begins.

What we cover

A recurring rhythm, not a once-a-year conversation.

The engagement is designed around the decisions a business owner actually has to make — month by month, quarter by quarter — not around a single annual report.

Cash flow rhythm

Working capital · forecast · cash runway

Monthly view of working capital, debtor days, supplier terms and short-term forecast. Catches issues while there is still time to act — before they become a refinance or facility request.

Management reporting

P&L · balance sheet · KPI commentary

Concise monthly or quarterly pack pulled from your accounting file, with a written commentary covering what changed, what to watch, and what action to take. Reports written to be read, not filed.

Loan-readiness

Management accounts · forecast · structure

Businesses that run a monthly rhythm tend to have what lenders need on hand: current management accounts, YTD figures, director drawings reconciled and a credible forecast. Faster from application to assessment.

Decision support

Pricing · hiring · investment · exit

Practical input on the decisions a business owner is actually facing — a hire, a price change, a new equipment purchase, a restructure, a property purchase — modelled against the numbers before the decision is made.

The cadence layer

Tax planning cadence

Quarterly review · pre-30 June actions

Each quarter reviews the tax position implied by the BAS and YTD performance. Pre-30 June planning, super contributions, asset purchases and structure reviews are scheduled before they become urgent.

Director drawings & Div 7A

Salary · dividend · loan account

Director and shareholder drawings tracked month by month so the year-end position is known, not discovered. Loan accounts kept within Division 7A requirements throughout the year.

Suited to

Businesses where this earns its fee.

Growing SMEs

Businesses past the start-up stage that need a forward-looking finance rhythm — typically annual revenue in the seven-figure range and growing. The point at which a monthly conversation starts paying for itself.

Director-led professional services

Single-director or small-partnership firms where the owner is also the senior operator. Advisory cadence frees the owner from doing the finance thinking alone.

Family-owned businesses

Multiple family members involved in distributions, drawings and decision-making. A neutral practitioner running the numbers reduces friction around financial decisions.

Loan-active businesses

Businesses that borrow regularly — equipment finance, working-capital facilities, commercial property — benefit from having lender-ready management accounts on hand at all times.

Process

From onboarding to ongoing rhythm — typically 4–6 weeks to onboard.

Onboarding takes a few weeks to align the accounting file, reports and cadence. From there the rhythm is monthly or quarterly.

Scoping & engagement

Scoping call covers the business model, the decisions you are facing, your accounting file condition and the desired cadence. Fixed fee confirmed in writing before work starts.

Onboarding & baseline

Read-only access to Xero or MYOB, prior-year financials, prior-year tax returns, current structure documents. Baseline review identifies the issues to work through first.

First management pack

The first monthly or quarterly pack establishes the report format and commentary style. We tune both based on what is useful to you — the report is a tool, not a deliverable.

Ongoing rhythm

Recurring monthly or quarterly meetings. Each meeting reviews the prior period, looks at decisions coming up, and confirms actions before the next cycle.

Annual review

At year-end the engagement ties to the company return, tax planning and any structural changes. The advisory work and the compliance work are scoped together.

Re-scope

At each anniversary we re-scope. Cadence may change as the business grows. The engagement should always justify its fee with documented decisions and actions.

Inside the rhythm

What one monthly cycle actually covers.

The cadence is easy to describe and easy to underestimate. This is the working shape of a single month once the engagement is running — and the kind of decision each review is built to inform.

The month, step by step

Close and reconcile

Early in the month, the prior month is closed: bank feeds reconciled, debtors and creditors reviewed, payroll and super checked, GST coding sighted. The advisory conversation only works if the numbers beneath it are settled first.

Pack and commentary

The management pack is prepared from the reconciled file and the written commentary is drafted — what changed, what to watch, what to do. It arrives before the meeting so the meeting is a discussion, not a presentation.

The meeting

A short, structured session: last month’s actions reviewed, the current position walked through, and the decisions coming up tabled against the numbers. Actions are agreed and recorded before the call ends.

Follow-through

Agreed actions are tracked to the next cycle. Anything with a lending dimension is flagged to the broking side of the practice; anything with a tax dimension feeds the quarterly review, so nothing waits for year-end.

The pack follows the format described on the management reporting page; on a quarterly cadence, the same steps run against the quarter and tie into the BAS.

The questions a review answers

Can we afford the hire?

A new salary is tested against margin and the months of cash it consumes before revenue catches up — so the decision is made against a timeline, not a gut feel about how busy the team is.

Draw more, or leave it in?

Director drawings are weighed against the loan account position, the year-end tax outcome and — where a property purchase is on the horizon — how the drawings pattern will read to a lender.

Borrow now, or after a cleaner quarter?

Current management accounts show how the business presents today. Sometimes the review supports applying now; sometimes it shows that waiting one reporting cycle produces a stronger file. The outcome always depends on the lender’s assessment.

Before the scoping call

Your most recent financial statements and lodged tax return — draft figures are fine if the year is not finalised.
A list of current loans and facilities: equipment finance, overdrafts, working-capital lines and any commercial property debt.
Who does the bookkeeping today, which software runs it, and roughly how current the file is.
The two or three decisions weighing on you right now — a hire, a purchase, a lease, a restructure. The engagement is scoped around them.

Frequently asked questions

Business advisory & Virtual CFO — common questions.

Common questions

How is a Virtual CFO engagement different from a normal accountant?

A normal accountant prepares your returns and BAS. A Virtual CFO engagement adds a recurring forward-looking conversation — typically monthly or quarterly — about cash flow, decisions you are facing, the numbers you should be watching, and the actions to take before things become urgent. The compliance work continues alongside; the advisory layer sits on top.

Is this designed to replace an in-house CFO?

For most small and growing businesses, a part-time external advisory engagement covers the strategic work that a CFO would do, at a fraction of the cost. For larger businesses, the engagement complements a Finance Manager or in-house controller rather than replacing senior finance roles. We are clear about the limits of the engagement at scoping.

What does a typical engagement cadence look like?

Most engagements run on a monthly or quarterly rhythm: short monthly check-in on cash flow and management reporting, longer quarterly review tying together BAS, performance, structure and tax-planning actions. Annual rhythm aligns with the year-end company return and pre-30-June planning. The exact cadence is set at scoping.

Do I need to use your bookkeeping or BAS services to engage Virtual CFO?

No, but it helps. The advisory work is much sharper when the same practitioner has visibility into the accounting file each month. If you keep your own bookkeeping or use another bookkeeper, we can still run the advisory layer — we just need read-only access to Xero or MYOB.

How are management reports prepared?

Management reports are pulled from your Xero or MYOB file and supplemented with a short commentary: what changed, what to watch, what action to take. We do not invent KPIs; we use the small set of numbers that genuinely drive decisions in your business.

How is the engagement priced?

A fixed monthly or quarterly fee based on the scope: cadence, size of the business, complexity of the structure, and whether bookkeeping and BAS are included. We quote in writing after a scoping call and the fee is fixed for the engagement period. No hourly billing surprises.

Can the Virtual CFO engagement help with loan applications?

Yes. Lenders typically want current management accounts, year-to-date figures, director drawings reconciled and a credible forward forecast. A business that is running a monthly advisory rhythm has all of that ready, which usually shortens the time from application to assessment. Loan structuring and lending advice is provided by the broking side of the practice (Eternity Mortgage Solutions), under credit-licence rules.

Will the engagement include personal tax advice for the directors?

Not as part of the standard Virtual CFO scope. Personal tax planning for directors and shareholders is a separate engagement (Tax Planning & Strategy), priced separately. The advisory work focuses on the business; the personal work focuses on the individual position — both can be run in parallel.

My bookkeeping is months behind — can the engagement still start?

Yes. The baseline review at onboarding is designed for exactly this: we assess how far behind the file is, scope any catch-up work as a separate fixed piece, and start the advisory rhythm once the file is current. There is no need to tidy the books before the scoping call — the state of the file is part of what the call establishes.

Connected services & guides

ATO tax debt helpFor business owners carrying ATO tax debt — accurate lodgements and reconciled balances first, then a prepared payment-plan request. Support and preparation; subject to ATO acceptance.BAS preparation & lodgementQuarterly BAS prepared and reconciled — the foundation of the management accounts that the advisory rhythm runs on.Company tax returnYear-end company return integrated with the monthly advisory cadence. No surprises at lodgement; no clean-up exercise.How One Roof worksAccounting, advisory, tax and lending scoped by the same practitioner. Read how the engagement runs.Business structuring implementationSetting up a new structure correctly — entity registration, ABN, TFN and GST, banking and software — before the advisory rhythm begins over the top.Guide: Hills District small business tax FAQPlain-English answers on GST, BAS, company versus sole trader, super and records for Hills District small business owners.

Where this fits in the bigger picture

Advisory engagements sit on top of clean compliance work. The connected pieces are BAS, company return, tax planning and (where the business borrows) lending.