Builds the budget you actually run on.
Turns last year's numbers and this year's plans into an annual budget by department, client, or project, then keeps it current as the year changes instead of filing it away in January.
Nacho ordinary finance help
Budgets, forecasts, and reporting without a full-time hire
Nacho matches growing businesses with vetted, 100% US-based Finance Specialists who build your budgets, forecasts, and monthly reports by the hour, starting at $65/hr.
Free 30-minute call. Every match backed by the Nacho re-match guarantee.
The short answer
What is a Finance Specialist?
A Finance Specialist is an experienced finance professional who handles your financial planning and reporting part-time. They build budgets, forecasts, and cash-flow projections, keep your KPI dashboard and monthly management report current, and model the decisions in front of you. Through Nacho, a Finance Specialist starts at $65 an hour.
The work is financial strategy, planning, and management, not record-keeping. A Finance Specialist starts from the numbers your bookkeeper or CPA already produces and turns them into something you can plan with: a budget to measure against, a forecast to steer by, and a report that says what changed.
Most small businesses handle this in one of two ways. The founder builds a spreadsheet once a year and rarely opens it again. Or they hire a full-time finance manager for work that comes in monthly and seasonal cycles. A Finance Specialist sits in between: a dedicated person running your planning and reporting, billed like any other hourly work.
It helps to see where the role sits. A bookkeeper or CPA records the transactions, closes the month, and files the taxes. Nacho refers that work to trusted partner firms. A Finance Specialist works on top of those clean books, doing the hands-on planning and reporting. A Fractional CFO is the executive who owns finance strategy and the decisions the numbers should drive.
- Nacho tier
- Specialist
- Schedule
- Part-time, sized to your planning and reporting cycle
- Reports to
- You, or your Fractional CFO if you have one
- Owns
- Budgets, forecasts, dashboards, reporting, and models
- Cost through Nacho
- From $65/hr from one monthly Talent Budget
- Based in
- The United States, 100% of the time
The job itself
What does a Finance Specialist actually do?
A Finance Specialist builds your budgets, keeps your forecasts and cash-flow projections current, sets up a KPI dashboard, writes the monthly management report, models pricing, hiring, and scenario decisions, and preps board and investor reporting. The work is planning and reporting on top of clean books.
Keeps the forecast and cash flow current.
Maintains a rolling revenue and expense forecast and a cash-flow projection, so you can see a tight month coming weeks ahead instead of finding it in the bank balance.
Sets up your KPI dashboard.
Picks the handful of numbers that matter for your business, pulls them into one dashboard, and keeps it updated so the same figures mean the same thing every month.
Writes the monthly management report.
Takes the numbers from your bookkeeper or CPA, compares them to budget, and writes a short report on what moved, why, and what to watch next month.
Models the decisions in front of you.
Builds the financial model for a price change, a new hire, a new location, or a best-case and worst-case scenario, so the decision rests on numbers instead of a gut feeling.
Preps board and investor reporting.
Assembles the financial pack for board meetings, investor updates, and lender requests, and tracks spend against budget so there are no surprises when someone asks.
What a Finance Specialist does not do is your bookkeeping or accounting. Nacho does not offer bookkeeping, reconciliations, month-end close, ledger cleanup, or tax prep and filing. We refer that work to trusted partner firms, and the Finance Specialist works with the numbers they produce. When you need someone to own finance strategy and the lender or investor conversation, that is a Fractional CFO.
Timing
When should you hire a Finance Specialist?
Hire a Finance Specialist when your books are clean but nobody is turning them into a plan. The usual trigger is no working budget, no current forecast, a monthly report that never gets written, or a decision about pricing, hiring, or spend that deserves a real model.
Signs you are ready
- Your bookkeeper keeps clean books, but nobody turns them into a budget, a forecast, or a monthly report.
- You find out a month was tight when the bank balance tells you, not weeks ahead.
- You are weighing a price change, a hire, or an expansion and want the numbers modelled first.
- Board meetings or investor updates mean a scramble to pull the financials together.
- Spend drifts past budget and nobody notices until the quarter is over.
- You want planning and reporting done well but do not need a finance executive setting strategy.
When it is the wrong hire
- What you need is bookkeeping or accounting. Nacho does not offer bookkeeping, reconciliations, month-end close, or ledger cleanup. We refer that work to trusted partner firms.
- Your books are behind or unreliable. A Finance Specialist works on top of clean books, so the bookkeeping gets fixed first.
- You need tax preparation or filing. That is a CPA engagement, and we refer it out too.
- You need someone to own finance strategy, cash decisions, and the lender or investor conversation. That is a Fractional CFO.
- You are not going to change pricing, spend, or hiring based on what the numbers say.
We would rather tell you on the discovery call that your books need a partner firm first, or that you need a Fractional CFO, than sell you hours that cannot land. If the real gap is invoices, scheduling, and inbox load, an Executive Assistant solves it for less.
Real numbers
What does a Finance Specialist cost?
A Finance Specialist through Nacho starts at $65 an hour. There is no placement fee and no separate retainer. Hours draw from one monthly Talent Budget with a $1,000 monthly minimum, so about $1,000 a month buys roughly 15 hours and about $2,000 a month buys roughly 30.
The comparison that matters is a full-time hire. An FP&A analyst or finance manager commonly earns a base salary in the $75,000 to $110,000 range, and payroll taxes, benefits, and equipment commonly add 25% to 35% on top. That is a full-time cost for work that, in most small businesses, comes in monthly and seasonal cycles.
Hourly flips that. You pay for the planning and reporting actually done, add hours around budget season or a board meeting, and the budgets, models, and dashboards stay with your company.
| What you are comparing | Finance Specialist through Nacho | Full-time FP&A analyst or finance manager |
|---|---|---|
| Rate | From $65/hr, published up front | Commonly $75,000 to $110,000 base salary, negotiated |
| Typical schedule | Part-time, sized to your planning and reporting cycle | 5 days a week |
| Payroll taxes and benefits | None. They are not your employee. | Commonly adds 25% to 35% on top of salary |
| Recruiting cost | None | Often 15% to 25% of first-year salary through an agency |
| Scope | Budgets, forecasts, dashboards, reporting, and models | Usually the same, plus whatever else lands on their desk |
| Time to first day | About a week from the discovery call | Often 1 to 3 months to search, close, and start |
| Commitment | 3-month initial term, then month to month | At-will in name, expensive in practice |
| If the fit is wrong | Free re-match under the Nacho Guarantee | Severance, a second search, and lost months |
| Illustrative annual cost | About $24,000 at roughly 30 hours a month | About $123,500 loaded on a $95,000 salary |
Salary, overhead, and search-fee ranges above are typical US market ranges for the role, not Nacho figures, and vary widely by industry, region, and company stage. The $95,000 example is illustrative arithmetic at 30% overhead, not a quote. The Nacho column is our published starting rate.
What the $65 starting rate actually buys
- $1,000 a month is about 15 hours: a monthly management report and a maintained cash-flow forecast.
- $2,000 a month is about 30 hours: the report and forecast, plus a KPI dashboard, spend tracking against budget, or a model for a specific decision.
- $4,000 a month is about 60 hours, roughly 15 hours a week: an annual budget build, a board or investor pack, or several models running at once.
Up to $200 of unused budget rolls over each month. Everything bills as one flat monthly Talent Budget, and if you also need an Executive Assistant from $40/hr or a Fractional Executive from $125/hr, they draw from the same budget. The only other fee is the $300 Delegation Strategy Plan, which comes before your first match. See how pricing works.
The process
How hiring a Finance Specialist through Nacho works
You book a free 30-minute discovery call, we build a $300 Delegation Strategy Plan, and we introduce you to 1 to 3 hand-picked Finance Specialists from our vetted, 100% US-based network. Most clients meet their first match within about a week.
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Book a free discovery call.
Thirty minutes, no obligation. Tell us what you cannot see in your numbers. We will tell you honestly whether a Finance Specialist is the right fit, whether you need a Fractional CFO instead, or whether your first move is cleaner books. If it is, we will point you to a bookkeeping firm we trust.
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We build your Delegation Strategy Plan.
For $300 we scope the engagement in writing: which budgets, forecasts, and reports the Finance Specialist owns, how many hours a month that takes, which tools they work in, and how you will know it worked.
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You meet your shortlist.
We hand-pick 1 to 3 Finance Specialists from our vetted, 100% US-based network and send you their backgrounds. You interview them. Nobody starts until you say yes to a specific person.
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We handle the paperwork.
Contracts, payments, and onboarding run through Nacho. Your Finance Specialist works inside your spreadsheets, reporting tools, and the numbers your bookkeeper produces, and reports to you, not to us.
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You scale it up or down.
A 3-month initial term gives the first budget and reporting cycle time to land, then it is month to month. Add hours around budget season or a board meeting, pull back when things are steady, and if the match is not right we re-match you free under the Nacho Guarantee.
Need a different kind of help?
- Fractional CFOFinance strategy, cash, and the money relationships
- Fractional Operations ManagerProcess, systems, and day-to-day execution
- Fractional ExecutivesCMO, CFO, COO, and CTO leadership
Every role comes from the same network under the same Talent Budget. See how pricing works.
Frequently asked questions
Finance Specialist questions, answered
What is a Finance Specialist?
A Finance Specialist is an experienced finance professional who handles your financial planning and reporting part-time. They build budgets, forecasts, and cash-flow projections, keep a KPI dashboard and monthly management report current, and model the decisions in front of you, the way an in-house FP&A analyst would, but you pay only for the hours you use.
Does a Nacho Finance Specialist do bookkeeping or accounting?
No. Nacho does not offer bookkeeping or accounting: no bookkeeping, reconciliations, month-end close, ledger cleanup, or tax preparation and filing. We refer that work to trusted partner firms. A Finance Specialist works on top of clean books, using the numbers your bookkeeper or CPA produces.
What is the difference between a Finance Specialist and a Fractional CFO?
A Finance Specialist is hands-on: budgets, forecasts, dashboards, reports, and models, starting at $65/hr. A Fractional CFO is the executive owner of finance strategy: cash decisions, pricing strategy, and the bank, lender, and investor relationships, starting at $125/hr. Many growing companies start with a Specialist, and some pair one with a Fractional CFO who sets direction while the Specialist does the build.
How much does a Finance Specialist cost?
Through Nacho, a Finance Specialist is a Specialist role starting at $65/hr, with no placement fee. Hours draw from one monthly Talent Budget with a $1,000 monthly minimum, so $1,000 buys about 15 hours and $2,000 buys about 30. A $300 Delegation Strategy Plan is the only other fee, and it comes before your first match.
Should I hire a Finance Specialist or a full-time FP&A analyst?
A full-time FP&A analyst or finance manager makes sense when planning and reporting fill a full week, every week. For most small businesses the work comes in cycles: budget season, the monthly report, a board meeting, a big decision. Hourly lets the cost follow that cycle instead of carrying a full salary, benefits, and payroll taxes all year.
What tools does a Finance Specialist work in?
Usually the ones you already have: spreadsheets, your accounting software as a read source for the numbers your bookkeeper keeps, and whatever dashboard or reporting tool you use. Your Delegation Strategy Plan lists the tools before you start.
How many hours a month does a Finance Specialist work?
It depends on what you hand over. A monthly report and a maintained forecast is a lighter month than building an annual budget or a board pack from scratch. Your Delegation Strategy Plan sets the hours before you start, and you can scale the budget up or down month to month.
When should a small business hire a Finance Specialist?
The usual trigger is clean books that nobody is using. The bookkeeping is done, but there is no budget to compare against, no forecast to plan with, and no monthly report that says what changed. If decisions about pricing, hiring, or spend are being made without those, the hourly math is worth running.
How long does a Finance Specialist engagement last?
Nacho engagements start with a 3-month initial commitment so the first budget and reporting cycle has time to land, then continue month to month. Many clients keep a Finance Specialist on a steady monthly rhythm and scale hours up around budget season or a board meeting.
What if the Finance Specialist is not the right fit?
We re-match you free under the Nacho Guarantee until the fit is right. It is a re-match guarantee, not a money-back guarantee. Every person in the network lives and works in the United States, so a re-match never means going offshore.
Ready when you are
Plan with your numbers, not around them.
Book a free, no-obligation discovery call. Tell us what you cannot see in your numbers and we'll tell you honestly whether a Finance Specialist is the right fit.