An $8M ARR EdTech SaaS company had outgrown its bookkeeper but was not ready for a full-time CFO. In 90 days, DMW Advisory cut month-end close from 21 days to 5 and found a product line that was margin-negative.

21 to 5

Month-end close (days)

$340K

Annual margin recovered

90 days

Full transformation timeline

Series A

Fundraising ready in 6 months

The Challenge

A fast-growing EdTech SaaS company had hit $8M in annual recurring revenue, but their financial infrastructure had not kept pace. Their lone bookkeeper was handling month-end close, but leadership had no visibility into unit economics, customer acquisition costs, or runway projections. Board meetings were a scramble of last-minute spreadsheets that nobody fully trusted.

“We were making decisions based on gut feel and a bank balance. At $2M that works. At $8M it is terrifying.”

What We Did

Phase 1: Financial Foundation (Weeks 1 to 4)

We started with a full diagnostic of their accounting stack. QuickBooks Online was handling the basics, but chart of accounts was not structured for SaaS metrics. We restructured the COA to separate recurring vs. non-recurring revenue, segment costs by department, and enable proper FP&A reporting.

Rebuilt chart of accounts for SaaS-specific reporting
Implemented accrual-basis revenue recognition for annual contracts
Created automated bank reconciliation workflows
Reduced month-end close from 3 weeks to 5 business days

Phase 2: KPI Dashboard and Forecasting (Weeks 5 to 8)

With clean books in place, we built a real-time CFO dashboard tracking the metrics that actually matter for a SaaS business: MRR growth, net revenue retention, CAC payback period, LTV:CAC ratio, gross margin by product line, and burn rate.

Built automated KPI dashboard refreshing weekly
Created 13-week rolling cash flow forecast
Developed scenario models for three growth trajectories
Established monthly financial review cadence with leadership

Phase 3: Board Readiness (Weeks 9 to 12)

The company had a board meeting every quarter but dreaded the prep. We built a standardized board deck template with actual vs. budget variance analysis, cohort analytics, and forward-looking projections that told a clear story.

The Results

21 to 5

Month-end close reduced from 21 days to 5 days

2 hours

Board prep cut from 2 weeks of panic to 2 hours of review

$340K/yr

Margin recovered by restructuring a margin-negative product line

Series A

Clean financials enabled a successful Series A process 6 months later

“DMW did not just clean up our books. They gave us a financial operating system. For the first time, I could walk into a board meeting feeling prepared instead of anxious.” , CEO

Key Takeaway: Most SaaS companies between $5M and $15M hit the same wall: they have outgrown their bookkeeper but are not ready for a $300K full-time CFO. A fractional CFO bridges that gap, delivering Wall Street-caliber financial leadership at a fraction of the cost.

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