Serving Austin and Central Texas
Fractional CFO and CMO — Austin and Central Texas
Local Fractional provides partner-led fractional CFO and CMO services to Austin businesses generating $2M–$50M in revenue. The Fractional CFO Partnership is a flat $5,000–$10,000+/month retainer (with a lighter $2,500/month Fractional Executive Advisory tier for businesses with clean books), delivered remote-first to Austin businesses, with travel for board meetings, planning, and other key on-site moments. Co-founders Chris Gauvin and Taber Wetz lead every engagement directly.
Dallas-Fort Worth based. Austin is right down I-35. Same hands-on approach, no matter which Texas city you call home.
Is Local Fractional actually an Austin firm?
Worth answering plainly, because it is the first thing a Central Texas owner should ask anyone claiming to be local. Local Fractional is a Texas company, our registered Texas address is in Austin, and one of our consulting team is based here in the city. Our founding partners work from Dallas–Fort Worth, three hours up I 35. What we do not have is a staffed office on Congress Avenue, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
What that means in practice: Austin engagements run remote-first, the same way they do for our clients across the country, with in-person time for planning sessions, board meetings, lender conversations and anything else that genuinely warrants being in the room. I 35 makes that a drive rather than a flight, and a plan rather than an event.
The part that is genuinely local is the context. Texas franchise tax, Texas labour markets, the way a Central Texas bank underwrites a contractor, what a landlord here expects on a personal guarantee — these are not things you explain from a coast. Austin's growth has drawn national consulting firms charging coastal rates for work that does not need a coastal cost base. See how our fractional CFO engagement model works: we price on scope, not on postcode.
Every engagement is led personally by a founding partner — Chris Gauvin or Taber Wetz on the finance side, with controller-level support underneath where the books need rebuilding rather than just reporting. You are not handed to an associate after the sales call. Chris took his business degree at UT Austin's McCombs School of Business, so the city is familiar ground rather than a territory on a map.
The Austin Business Landscape
Austin has transformed from a college town with a music scene into one of the most dynamic business markets in the country. The tech sector is the headline — major companies have relocated headquarters and engineering offices here, and the startup ecosystem is producing companies that scale fast and need financial infrastructure yesterday.
But the story underneath the tech headlines is just as compelling. Austin's construction and trades sector is booming. The city's rapid population growth means HVAC companies, plumbers, electricians, and roofers are scaling faster than they can hire. Many of these businesses are doing $3M to $10M in revenue and running their finances on spreadsheets and gut instinct. They have outgrown their bookkeeper but cannot justify a $250K full-time CFO. That gap is exactly where we operate.
The same is true on the tech side. SaaS companies and digital agencies in Austin often reach a point where the founder is still managing the P&L alongside product development and fundraising. They need someone who can build a real financial model, manage cash flow through a growth phase, and present financials to investors or acquirers with confidence. They do not need a full-time hire — they need a fractional CFO who has done this before.
Austin also has a strong creative economy — agencies, production companies, and CPG brands that are growing quickly but do not have the marketing strategy infrastructure to sustain it. A fractional CMO can build the revenue engine without the overhead of a full-time executive and a bloated marketing department.
Austin and Central Texas Communities We Serve
Our registered Texas address is in Austin and the I 35 corridor is the spine of this market, so we serve Central Texas as one region rather than as a metro with a fringe attached. Every community below is served on identical terms — no travel surcharge, and no difference in access between a downtown Austin client and one in Waco or Temple.
Downtown, East Austin & South Congress
Agencies, creative studios, production companies and hospitality groups. The recurring gap is project-level profitability — plenty of revenue visibility, very little view of which accounts and which jobs actually earn.
The Domain & North Austin
SaaS and technology companies where the founder is still carrying the P&L alongside product and fundraising. Reporting here is built around runway, burn and unit economics rather than utilisation, and it has to survive an investor reading it line by line.
Round Rock & Pflugerville
Manufacturing, distribution and the supplier base around the tech corridor. Inventory timing and customer concentration drive most of the cash risk, and neither is visible on a standard P&L.
Cedar Park & Leander
Some of the fastest household growth in the state, and with it HVAC, plumbing, electrical and roofing companies scaling faster than they can hire. Job costing and work-in-progress schedules are almost always the gap between the books and reality — see our construction and contracting practice.
Georgetown
Established local operators and professional-services firms, frequently first-time CFO engagements. The immediate need is a monthly close that closes on time and a 13-week cash view. Strategy comes after the numbers are trustworthy, not before.
San Marcos & New Braunfels
The I 35 south corridor runs to light industrial, tourism-linked hospitality and fast-growing retail. Seasonality is real here, so the forecast has to be built on a genuine seasonal profile rather than a trailing twelve-month average.
Waco
A market that has changed character quickly — construction, hospitality, food production and consumer brands selling nationally from a Central Texas base. Growth of that shape outruns its working capital long before it outruns its demand.
Temple & Killeen
Healthcare, logistics and defence-adjacent suppliers, where contract accounting and cash timing against milestone or reimbursement billing drive most of the finance workload.
Services Available to Austin Businesses
Fractional CFO
Cash flow planning, forecasting, and strategic financial leadership.
Fractional CMO
Revenue-focused marketing strategy and brand positioning.
Exit Planning
Sell-side advisory and buyer-ready positioning.
72-Hour Cash Flow
Complete cash flow analysis delivered in 72 hours.
SMB Acquisition
Buy-side advisory and financial due diligence.
Industry Specialists
HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, professional services.
What does a fractional CMO do for an Austin business?
Austin has more companies with a marketing problem than with a marketing budget problem. Demand generation is running, spend is going out, campaigns are shipping — and nobody can say which of it is producing profitable revenue. A fractional CMO is the executive who owns that answer: positioning, the offer, the channel mix, the funnel maths, and the discipline of killing what does not work.
The practice is led by our marketing partner, not a finance person moonlighting. Plenty of clients run it standalone. The ones who pair it with a CFO engagement get something rare: marketing costs and marketing results reconciled in one place.
Typical Austin engagements sit with agencies and creative studios where utilisation and account profitability drive everything, with consumer brands whose blended acquisition cost hides the fact that one channel is subsidising three, and with B2B and SaaS companies that need a pipeline model an investor will accept rather than a dashboard of activity.
How the CMO engagement works, pricing included, is on the CMO page. Finance the more pressing gap? Start with the CFO side.
Who you will actually work with
Worth being concrete about, because it is the difference that matters most. A great many firms match you to a consultant from a bench, and the person who wins the engagement is not the person who runs it. Here every engagement is led personally by a founding partner — the same person in month one and in month thirty.
Chris Gauvin
Co-Founder & Fractional CFO
Leads finance engagements personally — monthly close, cash-flow forecasting, lender and board reporting, and exit preparation.
Taber Wetz
Co-Founder & Fractional CFO
Leads finance engagements personally, with a focus on forecasting, pricing and margin work, and preparing a business to be sold.
Melissa Valdez
Fractional CMO
Leads the marketing practice — positioning, channel mix and the funnel maths that says which spend actually produced revenue.
Explainers
The questions that come up before anyone signs anything, answered in one picture each.
Fractional vs Interim vs Full-Time CFO
Three different instruments. Which one your situation actually calls for.
What a Fractional CFO Costs
The three tiers, what each includes, and why we price on scope not location.
CFO + CMO: Who Owns What
Two silos, one bridge. Marketing knows what it spent; finance knows what came back.
Your First 90 Days
Books cleaned, a cash view you can rely on, then the decisions those two change.
The 13-Week Cash Flow Forecast
Cash in, cash out, and the balance week by week — far enough ahead to act.
Austin & Central Texas — Common Questions
What fractional CFO services are available in Austin, TX?
Monthly close and management reporting, 13-week cash-flow forecasting, budgeting and variance analysis, KPI scorecards, lender and board reporting, pricing and margin work, and exit or sale preparation. Engagements are a fixed monthly scope rather than an hourly rate, so the cost is predictable from the first month.
Is Local Fractional an Austin company?
Local Fractional is a Texas company, our registered Texas address is in Austin, and one of our consulting team is based in the city. Our founding partners work from Dallas–Fort Worth, three hours up I 35, and we are candid that we do not keep a staffed office in Austin. Central Texas engagements run remote-first with in-person time for planning sessions, board meetings and anything else that genuinely warrants being in the room.
What is the difference between a fractional CFO, an outsourced CFO and a virtual CFO in Austin?
In practice these are three names for the same thing: a senior finance leader engaged part-time instead of hired full-time. The differences that actually matter are seniority and continuity. Ask who does the work, whether it is the same person every month, and whether they will sit in front of your bank or your board. At Local Fractional a founding partner leads every engagement personally.
How much does a fractional CFO cost in Austin?
We price on scope, not on postcode, so Austin rates match our Dallas rates. The Fractional CFO Partnership is a flat monthly retainer, with a lighter Fractional Executive Advisory tier for businesses whose books are already clean. Most engagements land well below the fully loaded cost of a full-time CFO once salary, bonus, benefits and payroll taxes are counted.
Can you help an Austin business that only needs part-time finance help right now?
Yes, and that is the usual starting point. Many Central Texas companies reach us having outgrown a bookkeeper but with a full-time CFO still years away. The first work is almost always the same: a monthly close you can trust and a 13-week cash view. Strategy is worth very little on top of numbers you do not believe.
Do you offer fractional CMO services in Austin as well?
Yes. The CMO practice is a separate discipline led by our marketing partner, and it can run alongside a CFO engagement or entirely on its own. Austin's agency, CPG and SaaS businesses often have demand generation running well ahead of the reporting that would tell them which parts of it are profitable.
Do you work with Austin nonprofits?
Yes. Nonprofit finance carries requirements a commercial book does not — restricted versus unrestricted funds, grant reporting, functional expense allocation and a board that needs to read the statements without an accounting background. We treat that as its own specialism rather than a variation on commercial reporting.
Do you serve Round Rock, Georgetown, Waco and Temple as well as Austin proper?
Yes, on identical terms. There is no travel surcharge and no difference in access between a downtown Austin client and one in Waco or Temple. The I 35 corridor from Georgetown north through Temple and Waco is one of the fastest-growing business corridors in the country and it is served the same way as the metro.
Ready to Talk?
No pitch, just a conversation about your business and where you want to take it. We will figure out together if there is a fit.
Book a Free ConsultationOr email info@localfractional.com