Working as a fractional CFO has been more educational than I expected. Managing financial strategy for multiple law firms simultaneously gives you a unique perspective - you start seeing patterns everywhere.
The same challenges keep appearing. Cash flow management issues during slow months. Partners who don't understand their own financial statements. Billing and collection processes that leak money. Technology investments without ROI analysis. The list goes on.
So I did what any programmer-turned-CFO would do. I built a template.
This isn't just a spreadsheet (though there are plenty of those). It's a complete framework for analyzing and improving law firm finances. Financial dashboards that actually make sense to non-financial people. Standardized KPIs that matter for legal practices. Automated reports that highlight problems before they become crises.
The template has modules for everything I've encountered. Cash flow forecasting that accounts for the typical collection cycles in legal work. Partner compensation models that balance fairness with performance. Technology ROI calculators specifically for legal software. Even templates for those difficult partnership buyout negotiations.
What makes this powerful is the customization layer. The core framework stays the same, but I can quickly adapt it for personal injury firms versus corporate law practices. Solo practitioners get a simplified version while larger partnerships get the full suite.
The efficiency gains are incredible. What used to take me weeks to set up for a new client now takes days. I can onboard a new law firm and have actionable insights ready in our first real meeting. The standardization also means I can spot issues faster - when you've seen the pattern twenty times, the twenty-first is obvious.
This approach is transforming how I work. Instead of reinventing the wheel for each client, I'm refining and improving a single system. Each new challenge makes the template better. Each solution becomes available to all my clients.
The real win? Law firms get better financial guidance at a fraction of the cost. And I can help more firms without burning out. That's the power of building systems instead of just solving problems.