Accounting & Fractional CFO Advisory

Financial Leadership for Every Stage of Your Foodservice & Retail Business

Clean books and a real CFO in your corner, without the cost of a full-time hire.

JRF Consulting works with foodservice and retail operators doing $2M a year and up. Accounting keeps your books clean, current, and closed on time. Fractional CFO advisory turns those numbers into margin decisions, cash forecasts, and a business that is ready for its next capital event.

Get an Estimate Start a Conversation Learn More
Intuit QuickBooks ProAdvisor, Gold tier Intuit QuickBooks ProAdvisor, Gold tier QuickBooks Online Certified, Level 2 Bookkeeping
25+ Years in Operational Finance
20+ M&A Transactions ($10M - $350M)
$1M to $70M Scaled in 3 Years
Sound Familiar?

The Problems That Slow Growth

These are the issues we see most often in foodservice and retail businesses that are growing faster than their financial infrastructure can support.

Food Cost Running on Feel, Not Data

Menu pricing, plate cost, and ingredient margins are managed by instinct instead of real-time data. Small variances compound into significant profit loss across locations and seasons.

Revenue Is Up, but Margins Are Shrinking

Top-line growth masks the real story. Labor, cost of goods, and overhead are eating into profit faster than the business can adjust. Without clear margin visibility, it is hard to know where to cut or where to invest.

Financials That Do Not Tell the Real Story

Outdated books, inconsistent reporting, or accounting systems that were never built for scale. Decision-makers are flying blind when the numbers they depend on are months behind or unreliable.

Winning RFPs Without Leaving Money on the Table

Competitive bids in contract foodservice and catering require sharp financial modeling. Pricing too low erodes margin; pricing too high loses the deal. The right financial framework changes the outcome.

Multi-Location Complexity Without Visibility

Each new location or concept adds operational layers. Without consolidated reporting and unit-level economics, it becomes impossible to see which locations are carrying the business and which are dragging it down.

A Capital Event on the Horizon With No Financial Infrastructure

Preparing for a sale, recapitalization, or outside investment requires clean financials, clear EBITDA, and a credible story. Most businesses realize too late that their books are not ready for diligence.

What We Do

Built for Operators, Not Accountants

There are two ways to work with us. Most operators start with Accounting and add CFO advisory as the business grows. Either one stands on its own, and taking both earns a bundled rate.

01

Accounting Services

Books that are clean, current, and closed on time, so the numbers you make decisions on are numbers you can trust. One service, priced on what your books actually involve rather than on a package you have to fit into.

  • A working call, not a file in your inbox What makes it accounting

    Every engagement includes a call with your accountant at the cadence you choose, weekly, monthly, or quarterly, to review the numbers and manage the close with you. That is the difference between this and bookkeeping, where someone records the transactions and emails you a file.

  • A senior staff accountant, working with you Who you work with

    Your day to day contact is a senior staff accountant on our team, and they are who you sit down with on the cadence call. Jeff works with clients on the advisory side rather than here, so if you would like him involved as well, that is the Fractional CFO line.

  • Priced on the work, not a package From $1,000 a month

    Transaction coding, reconciliation, and a monthly close you can rely on, plus whatever else your books actually involve: payroll accounting, bill pay, customer invoicing and AR, sales tax, inventory, and POS or e-commerce integrations. The fee moves with the real workload rather than with a tier you have been slotted into.

02

Fractional CFO Advisory

CFO-level judgment on a set cadence, at a fraction of a full-time hire. What separates the three tiers is how often we meet, because that is what actually changes how a business gets run. This is the side of the work Jeff takes on with you directly.

  • Essential Monthly CFO call

    A monthly CFO call with flux analysis, plus cash flow forecasting, KPI development and reporting, and accounting operations consulting.

  • Advisory Adds a month-end close call

    Everything in Essential, plus a month-end close call that coordinates with your own accountant so the books close timely and accurately. Adds financial modeling and internal controls.

  • Executive Adds weekly tactical calls

    Everything in Advisory, plus weekly tactical finance calls. Adds budget creation and analysis, technology advisory, and strategic and board support.

How That Shows Up In Your Business

Books That Keep Up With You

Staying current is harder than it sounds. Locations open, accounts multiply, staff turns over, and the close slips a week, then a month. We take the volume off your desk and keep it closed on schedule, so the numbers are ready when you need them rather than three months after the fact.

Reporting You Can Decide From

Chart of accounts restructured for how you actually run, with unit-level and consolidated reporting that reconciles. Not a bigger pile of statements, but a monthly package that answers what changed, where, and why.

Where The Margin Actually Goes

Food cost, plate and menu pricing, labor benchmarking, and retail margin review, tied back to reliable books. This is where clean accounting turns into a CFO conversation: we find the leaks, quantify them, then keep them visible month after month.

Bids, Growth, and Capital Events

Financial modeling for contract foodservice and catering bids, so you win at the highest sustainable margin rather than the lowest price. And when a sale, recapitalization, or raise arrives, clean EBITDA and a credible financial story so you negotiate from strength.

What The Alternative Costs

When compared with the seats you would otherwise have to fill, these are typical all in annualized costs, inclusive of benefits and payroll taxes.

Bookkeeper
$75,000All in, per year

Records the activity, pays the bills, reconciles the accounts. Owns the data entry everything else depends on.

Staff Accountant
$120,000All in, per year

Analyzes the accounts and owns the close. Confirms the balance sheet ties and the P&L is reliable.

Controller
$205,000All in, per year

Full suite of statements, bank and investor ready. Manages the function and often touches forecasting.

A full-time CFO runs $300,000 to $500,000 all in, once base, bonus and benefits are counted. Our estimate tool shows you what your own scope would cost as salary, alongside what it costs with us. The gap is rarely less than half.

Want a number before you call? Build your own estimate in about two minutes.

Get an Estimate
Where Most Engagements Start

The Stabilization Sprint

A focused, fixed-fee engagement designed to get your financial house in order. Most clients start here before moving to an ongoing advisory relationship.

Accounting System Setup or Cleanup

Chart of accounts restructured for your industry. Clean, reliable data from day one.

Financial Reporting Framework

Monthly P&L, cash flow, and margin reporting tailored to foodservice and retail operations.

Margin & Cost Analysis

Food cost, labor cost, and unit-level economics mapped and benchmarked. Clear visibility into where profit lives and where it leaks.

Actionable Roadmap

A prioritized set of financial improvements with timelines. Not a binder that sits on a shelf.

Ask About the Sprint
Jeff Fearn, Fractional CFO
About

Jeff Fearn

I spent 11 years at Compass Group, one of the largest contract foodservice companies in the world, leading finance in the B&I and Healthcare sectors, supporting M&A across all sectors, and serving as part of the finance leadership team for the Foodbuy purchasing organization. Before that, I spent 10 years in grocery retail, building the financial infrastructure that supports high-volume, margin-sensitive operations.

Across 25 years of operational finance leadership, I have sat on the buy side of more than 20 M&A transactions ranging from $10M to $350M. I have seen what well-run financial operations look like at scale, and I have seen what happens when businesses outgrow their financial infrastructure without realizing it.

JRF Consulting brings that experience to foodservice and retail operators doing $2M a year and up. I deliberately built the firm to be reachable for smaller operators, because that is where good financial infrastructure pays off fastest. Whether you need clean books, margin clarity, help winning competitive bids, or a financial partner to get you through a transaction, I work directly with ownership and leadership to get it done.

Based in Charlotte, NC. Serving clients regionally and nationally.

Certifications

QuickBooks Online, Done Properly

The platform matters. Knowing one of them deeply beats knowing four of them passably.

Intuit QuickBooks ProAdvisor, Gold tier
Intuit QuickBooks ProAdvisor, Gold tier

Intuit QuickBooks ProAdvisor, Gold tier, and certified at Level 2 in QuickBooks Online bookkeeping. The Credly badge is independently verifiable, so click it rather than taking my word for it.

We work exclusively in QuickBooks Online. That is a deliberate choice rather than a limitation. Staying inside one platform means knowing its class and location tracking, its reporting quirks, and its integrations well enough to get real answers out of it instead of fighting it.

On something else today? Still worth a conversation. Most of the work transfers, and moving onto QuickBooks Online is often part of onboarding anyway.

Your Margins Should Tell a Story. Let's Make Sure It's the Right One.

Accounting and fractional CFO advisory for foodservice and retail operators doing $2M and up.

Get an Estimate Start a Conversation Call: 704-497-3455