Short answer: fractional bookkeeping services give your company a professional bookkeeper, with a reviewer and a team behind them, for the share of time your books actually need. They work in your accounting system, reconcile every account, close the month on a fixed date and send you a P&L, balance sheet and cash flow you can rely on. You get clean books without hiring, training and covering for a full-time employee.
Here is what that looks like in practice, how it compares with the alternatives and how to tell whether it fits your company. For how we do it, see our fractional bookkeeping services page.
What are fractional bookkeeping services?
"Fractional" means you buy a fraction of a professional's time instead of a whole salary. The same idea gave us the fractional CFO. For bookkeeping, it means a named bookkeeper works on your books on a set schedule each month, a reviewer checks the work, and the close happens on a calendar you can plan around.
A typical month includes:
- Day-to-day bookkeeping: transactions coded to a chart of accounts that reports the way you run the business, vendor bills and customer invoices recorded.
- Reconciliations: every bank, credit card, loan and merchant account tied out, so the balance sheet holds up at any point in the year.
- Payroll entries: payroll from your provider booked correctly by department or location.
- Month-end close: accruals, prepaid expenses and a review of anything unusual.
- A monthly package: P&L, balance sheet and cash flow, delivered on a fixed date, with questions batched and sent once.
Fractional bookkeeper vs. in-house hire vs. software alone
A full-time in-house bookkeeper is one person. When they are out sick, behind or gone, the books stop, and the know-how leaves with them. You also carry the hiring, training, benefits and supervision.
Software alone categorizes bank feeds, but nobody reconciles the accounts, asks why a balance moved or notices that a bill was booked twice. The reports look finished and often aren't.
A fractional bookkeeper sits between the two: a person who owns your books, with a team behind that person for coverage and review. If you are weighing the options in dollars, our finance team cost calculator estimates in-house versus outsourced for your situation, and our outsourced vs. in-house comparison lays out the trade-offs side by side.
Signs your company is ready for fractional bookkeeping
- The books are always a month or two behind, so decisions are made on stale numbers.
- A part-time bookkeeper or office manager is juggling billing, payroll questions and vendor calls, and reconciliations slip.
- You have several entities, locations or bank accounts, and they aren't closed the same way.
- A lender, investor or buyer is asking for financials that won't survive their questions.
- Your bookkeeper just left.
What good fractional bookkeeping produces
The point is not tidier books for their own sake. It is numbers you can act on, on time. A few examples from our own work: a healthcare group with 12 entities went from a six-week close to ten days; an alternative-finance lender has roughly 180 loans reconciled every month with monthly borrowing-base reporting; and a special-purpose vehicle gets its accounting and investor reporting with zero internal finance hires.
What to ask a fractional bookkeeping provider
- Who exactly will do my books, and who reviews their work?
- On what day each month will I get my financials?
- Do you work in my existing system, or do I have to switch?
- What happens when my bookkeeper is out?
- Can I get CFO-level help when the numbers raise a bigger question?
Where River Edge fits
River Edge Advisors is a CPA-led outsourced accounting and fractional CFO firm with a team of 75+, based in Cedarhurst, New York, and working with clients nationwide in healthcare, real estate and property management, MCA and alternative finance, and venture-backed startups. Our fractional bookkeeping clients get a named bookkeeper and reviewer, a close on a fixed date, and fractional CFO support when they need it. If you'd like a second set of eyes, we're happy to review last month's books for free.
Common questions
What are fractional bookkeeping services?
Fractional bookkeeping services give a company a named bookkeeper, backed by a reviewer and a team, who work in its accounting system part-time: recording transactions, reconciling every bank and card account, coordinating payroll entries and closing the month on a fixed date, without the company hiring a full-time bookkeeper.
Is fractional bookkeeping the same as outsourced bookkeeping?
The terms overlap. Outsourced bookkeeping describes who does the work; fractional describes how much of it you buy. A fractional bookkeeper is an outside professional who gives your company the share of time it needs, with a team behind them.
How is a fractional bookkeeper different from bookkeeping software?
Software categorizes transactions. A fractional bookkeeper reconciles the accounts, asks why a balance moved, catches duplicates and errors, closes the month and hands you financial statements you can make decisions on.
When should a company switch to fractional bookkeeping?
Common triggers are books that run a month or more behind, a stretched part-time bookkeeper or office manager, several entities or bank accounts closed inconsistently, a lender or investor asking for financials, or a bookkeeper who just left.