Looking for an interim CFO in Houston usually starts with a short, practical message to yourself. The person who handled the money has gone, the next hire is not found yet, and the work does not stop in between. Steven Palmieri is a Tax CFO, and this is the arrangement we offer for the gap, for as long as the gap lasts.
Most owners think first about the bookkeeping, and the books are part of it. Other things also go quiet when a finance person leaves. The cash plan stops getting refreshed. The conversation with the bank pauses. The estimated tax payments lose the person who set them. Nobody is reading the numbers for the next quarter, so the first sign of trouble is a bank balance that looks wrong on a Friday.
We treat the gap as a handoff problem. The aim is to keep the full job running, and to leave the next hire a tidy set of files, which they will thank you for.
In the first week we find out where things stand. We read the last closed month, the open bills, the unpaid invoices, the bank connections and the calendar. Then the work settles into a rhythm.
The close happens every month, so statements stay current. Cash for the months ahead is rebuilt and refreshed. Your payroll provider keeps running payday. We confirm its filings are being watched, while payday remains the provider's job. Tax dates stay on the calendar, and we check each one against your bank before it arrives. You get one monthly meeting by video to look at what changed and pick the next decision.
Some dates keep coming when nobody is watching them, and they cost the most when they are missed. Each month, sales tax is a return that has to be in by the 20th. May 15 brings the franchise report. If your business owns equipment or inventory, a property rendition goes to the appraisal district, and the Harris Central Appraisal District takes it online through its iFile service. That is one of the dates that goes quiet when nobody is looking.
If your Houston address sits in Fort Bend or Montgomery County, a different appraisal district sends the notice and sets the dates. We keep your dates by county. The page on the taxes a Houston business plans cash around lists them in one place.
There are two good endings. The first is that you hire a full-time person, and we hand over everything. They get a closed set of books, a current cash plan, a list of what is due and a short note on each decision still open. We stay available for a few weeks if they want to ask a question. The second ending is that the interim arrangement turns out to be enough, and you keep the monthly rhythm with us as a fractional CFO. What that looks like is the next page to read if you are weighing the second path. Both endings are fine, and we do not push either.
In the quiet months, the one decision this page asks of you is what you want the next hire to inherit. If it is a tidy file, tell us now and we will build toward it from the first close.
Dallas is where our practice sits and Houston is where you run the company, which is why video and shared books carry the work. We say that once and plainly, so nobody wonders later. A Dallas practice and a Houston company can share one set of books without trouble. Because we are all Texans, the Comptroller, the franchise report and the Central Time clock are the same ones we use ourselves.
We are not a staffing agency and we do not place people. We do not sign reports on your statements, and a lender that requires that needs a licensed firm for that part. If your finance person left and the books were behind for a long time before that, the first step is a closed month, and we can start there.
Tell us when your person left and what is due next. We will look at the calendar with you on a free Second Look call, with nothing to sign and nothing to pay.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.