CFO-level financial leadership for companies that have outgrown accounting - but aren't ready for a full-time CFO.
Proteris CPA Advisory helps companies improve cash, margins, decision-making and enterprise value. We provide the strategic financial leadership a growing company needs. We work above the accounting — on the planning, the forecasting, the numbers that drive decisions, and ultimately on what your business is worth.
There is no shortage of firms that will keep your books. What most growing companies are actually missing is the layer above that — someone who reads the numbers, challenges the assumptions behind them, frames the decisions, and stays accountable for what happens next. That is the work we do, and it is all we do.
What We Do
Four ways we work with growing companies — from a single defined engagement to standing financial leadership.
Diagnostics
A defined, fixed-scope assessment that tells you where you actually stand — on exit readiness, on financial performance, or on cash. Written findings, quantified, with a clear recommendation.
Strategic CFO Advisory
The standing relationship. Forecasting, KPIs, unit economics, cash management, budgeting, board and lender reporting — and a senior advisor in the room when decisions get made.
Value Creation & Exit Readiness
The work that makes a company worth more and easier to sell — earnings quality, margin structure, concentration, forecast credibility, and reducing how much depends on you.
Transaction Advisory
Sell-side preparation, buy-side diligence, acquisition integration, and financing support. The moments where the quality of your numbers determines the outcome.
Nobody Wakes Up Wanting Financial Advice
They call because something happened. Usually one of these.
- A buyer or a competitor called, unsolicited - and you have no idea what the business is actually worth.
- You’re three to five years from selling and tired of guessing whether you’re ready.
- Your borrowing capacity got cut right as the opportunities got interesting.
- An acquisition is on the table and you need to know what you’d actually be buying.
- The bank wants a forecast, a covenant calculation, or a projection you don’t have.
- Your sponsor or your board wants reporting your team can’t produce yet.
- You’re profitable on paper and still watching the cash balance every Friday.
- You’re doing the CFO’s job at night, on top of the one you’re supposed to be doing.
- You can’t say with confidence which jobs, customers, or products actually make money.
- Something big has to get done — a system, a facility, a raise — and four months on, it hasn’t moved.
- Revenue grew. Margin didn’t. Nobody can explain why.
- Your accountant is doing a fine job. Nobody is telling you what the numbers mean.
CFO judgment, with CPA accountability.
The advisory market is full of people with no license, no professional standards obligation, and no regulator. That distinction stays invisible right up until it matters — in a lender negotiation, in a diligence process, in the room where a buyer’s advisors are testing whether your numbers hold.
Proteris is a Florida-licensed CPA firm. A licensed CPA takes professional responsibility for the advice, the analysis, and the numbers that will eventually be tested by someone with every reason to find a problem. That is what an unlicensed advisor cannot offer, and it is the reason our clients’ numbers hold up when it counts.
We Work Alongside Your Accountant. We Don’t Replace Them.
We don’t do bookkeeping, monthly close, or tax returns. That work stays with your existing bookkeeper, controller, or CPA — and if you don’t have one, or the one you have isn’t keeping up, we can make introductions from our referral network. You evaluate and engage them directly.
This is deliberate. Financial leadership and financial record-keeping are different disciplines, and doing one well is not the same as doing the other. We do the leadership. We work with whoever does the rest.
Start Smaller.
Sometimes you don’t need a CFO. You need one specific question answered properly, by someone who has answered it before.
An Advisory Sprint is a fixed-scope, fixed-fee engagement of two to four weeks. One defined deliverable, one clear recommendation, one price agreed before we start. No retainer, no annual term, no open-ended discovery. Sprints start at $7,500.
Run Your Company Like You’re Going to Sell It
Most of our clients are not selling. Some never will. This is a management standard, not a prediction — because whether or not a sale ever happens, the disciplines are identical. Clean, defensible numbers. Cash you can see three months out. Margins you understand at the job, product, or customer level. A business that doesn’t stop when you take two weeks off.
Companies run that way are better companies to own — they make better decisions, borrow on better terms, and absorb a bad quarter without drama. They are also worth substantially more when the time comes, and they survive diligence without the value erosion that catches most owners by surprise. That is what we build toward from the first engagement, and it is why our clients are ready when an opportunity arrives rather than scrambling to become ready.
What Working With Us Actually Looks Like
No mystery, no open-ended discovery, and no obligation to a retainer to find out whether we’re useful.
The call
Thirty minutes. You describe what’s in front of you. We ask questions and tell you honestly whether we’re the right fit — and if we’re not, we’ll usually know who is. No presentation and no proposal on this call.
A written scope
If it makes sense, you get a proposal within about a week: the question we’re answering, the deliverable, the timeline, and the fee. Fixed, and agreed before any work begins.
A first engagement
Two to four weeks. Almost every relationship opens with a diagnostic or a sprint rather than a retainer, so you see how we work on one defined question before either of us commits to anything ongoing.
Then it’s your call
Written findings, quantified where they can be, with a recommendation somebody can act on. Some clients take it from there. Others move into a standing advisory relationship. We’ll tell you which one we think you need.
Who We Serve
We work with growing companies across construction and contracting, home services and franchise systems, manufacturing and distribution, B2B and route-based services, professional services, and technology and SaaS — and with private-equity-backed and sponsor-owned companies across all of them.
The financial disciplines that build enterprise value are remarkably consistent from one industry to the next. What changes is how work is won, how revenue is recognized, and where cash gets tied up. We learn yours.
Three Decades of Sitting Where You Sit
Proteris is led by Sean Murray, CPA, who brings roughly thirty years of finance and CFO leadership — including private-equity-backed portfolio companies, transaction work on both sides of the table, and public company control environments.
He has built the forecasts, defended the add-backs, and sat across from the diligence team. That experience is the firm’s credibility anchor - a proven framework, applied with professional judgment.
Let’s talk about where your business is going.
A conversation, not a pitch. Tell us where you are and what you’re trying to get to.
Not ready for a call? Explore Advisory Sprints →