There is a stage where a bookkeeper is not enough and a full-time CFO is not yet justified. Two products get offered for that stage, and they are not the same job. Outsourced accounting produces the numbers: books closed to a date, reconciliations done, GST and TDS tied back to the ledger, statutory statements in Schedule III format. A virtual CFO is accountable for what those numbers mean — controls, cash, the board pack, the funding conversation, and the compliance calendar that sits around them.
If your problem is that the books are late, the GST does not reconcile and the auditor is reconstructing the year in March, you need accounting. If the books are acceptable but nobody owns the forecast, the board pack arrives on the twentieth with no commentary, and cash surprises you, you need a virtual CFO. Many growing Indian companies and Indian subsidiaries of foreign groups need both, sequenced: clean the close first, then put a senior person on the pack and the calendar.
A typical virtual CFO engagement is a fixed number of days each month at an agreed fee, with a named senior professional and a delivery team behind them. Scope is reviewed quarterly. The intended end state, for many clients, is a full-time hire. When you are ready for a full-time hire, we help define the role and run the handover. We do not defend the retainer.
What you should be able to see every month is simple: a reporting pack on a committed date, a live cash forecast, variances explained rather than listed, and a compliance calendar that is not a surprise. Group reporting into a foreign parent — format, currency, reconciliation to Indian statutory books — is part of the same job when the client is a subsidiary.
If you are in Bengaluru and trying to decide which engagement to start, begin with the decision you cannot currently take because the numbers are late, incomplete or unexplained. That is the gap. The product name comes after.