Direct Businesses
A global finance team for businesses that have outgrown spreadsheets but aren't ready to build an in-house department — senior-level judgment, without the senior-level headcount.
You Don't Need A CFO Yet. You Need What A CFO Does.
Nearly 75% of the current CPA workforce is expected to retire within 15 years, and starting salaries for the professionals still in the field have surged as a result. For a growing business, that means the in-house hire you're planning for next year is going to cost more and take longer to fill than it would have two years ago. Most businesses in this position don't actually need a full finance department yet — they need the judgment one would provide, without carrying the headcount before the business is ready for it.
The full scope of direct partnership work, handled end to end.
Here's exactly what that looks like handled properly:
Built for businesses that need a partner, not a piecemeal vendor list.
Businesses outside India, scaling
You've outgrown a bookkeeper working from spreadsheets, but a full in-house finance department isn't the right size yet.
Businesses entering a new market
You're expanding into a country whose compliance rules you don't have in-house expertise in.
If you already have an in-house finance team that's functioning well, you likely don't need this — a lighter advisory engagement for a specific gap would serve you better than a full partnership.
Why Building This In-House Is Getting Harder, Not Easier.
This isn't a regulatory checklist — it's what the hiring data actually shows about the team you'd be trying to build.
Workforce Retiring
The AICPA estimates nearly 75% of the current CPA workforce is expected to retire within the next 15 years — shrinking exactly the talent pool you'd be hiring from.
Starting Salaries Up
Starting salaries for accounting professionals have surged roughly 15% as firms and businesses compete for a shrinking pipeline of qualified candidates.
Annual Openings vs. Shrinking Supply
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects over 120,000 accounting and auditing openings a year, against a declining number of new CPA graduates to fill them.
Time To Productive
Even a strong non-traditional hire typically needs 6 to 12 months to become fully productive in a specialized finance role — time most growing businesses don't have to spare.
A documented process, from scoping to your first close.
Click a step to see how it works.
Free consultation
We learn your current setup, markets, and where the gaps actually are.
Scope & proposal
A clear list of deliverables, practices involved, and turnaround times.
Secure onboarding
NDA signed, access set up, existing records reviewed for gaps.
Ongoing delivery
Books, filings, and advisory delivered on schedule, with one team accountable for all of it.
The advantage isn't any single service. It's never having to explain your business to a new vendor again.
Most growing businesses end up with a bookkeeper, a tax preparer, a lawyer, and eventually a fractional CFO — four relationships, four onboardings, four people who don't talk to each other. What's harder to find is one team that already has the full picture, so a question about tax doesn't require re-explaining what the legal structure is. That's the real value of a partner instead of a vendor list.
Pricing depends on scope, not guesswork.
Practices needed
Bookkeeping only, or the full six.
Markets
How many countries you operate in.
Complexity
Entity structure and transaction volume.
There's no flat rate that fits an early-stage business and a multi-country group the same way, so we don't pretend there is. Most engagements are scoped and quoted on the first call, not after weeks of back-and-forth.
Why not just hire a full in-house finance team?
A fair question — here's how the trade-off actually looks.
Building In-House
Partnering with Corptiva
A case study from this partnership model.
Replacing four separate vendors with one accountable partner mid-growth
What consolidating bookkeeping, tax, legal, and advisory under one team looks like for a business that had outgrown managing four relationships separately.
Fluent in the tools you already use.
What partners usually ask.
Not necessarily — pricing and scope adjust to your stage. The honest answer comes on the first call, not a sales pitch.
Yes — many relationships start with one practice and expand as the business grows into needing more.
For many businesses, yes — the CFO & Advisory practice covers what a CFO would do until you're genuinely ready for a full-time hire.
Tell us on the first call — we're direct about what we can and can't support.
A bookkeeper keeps records. This is a full finance function — books, filings, compliance, and advisory, under one accountable team.
Yes — some clients use us to support a lean in-house hire rather than replace the need for one entirely.
One call to see if we're the right fit — no pitch, no pressure.
Tell us what you're dealing with — messy books, a firm outgrowing its bandwidth, a market you haven't worked in before. We'll tell you honestly whether Corptiva is the right partner for it.