Why a Fractional Team Outperforms a Team of One
When your business grows, so does the complexity of its operations. Functions like accounting, payroll, bill payments, and financial reporting are essential, but they are not part of your core revenue engine. The challenge is finding the right expertise to handle these areas without overhiring or underhiring and without slowing your growth. Many businesses start with a solo fractional bookkeeper due to limited volume. Eventually, as the business grows the limitations become clearer.
A fractional team model offers a better way: access to the right skills, at the right time, for the right cost. We’re not claiming it’s a silver bullet in all cases but believe it is in most. Let’s explore the pros and cons of each option.
The Fractional Team Model: Pros and Cons
A fractional team builds on the “hire only what you need” concept by giving you a coordinated group of specialists rather than relying on one person to cover every role. You get the right mix of CFO, Controller, Accounting Manager, Accountant, and Bookkeeper expertise matched to your stage of growth, with the flexibility to adjust that mix as your needs change. As your business evolves, the team scales seamlessly without disrupting operations. Many of the advantages in the list below connect directly to our P-R-O-F-I-T approach, which shapes how we deliver results. While the “F” stands for Fractional, the benefits extend well beyond that pillar alone.
Advantages of a Fractional Team
The right expertise for every scenario – From strategic insight to daily execution, the team can handle everything from financial analysis to compliance and reporting. This directly supports the Performance pillar by ensuring you have the right insights to improve results.
True scalability – As your revenue climbs or your needs shift, the hours and mix of roles can be adjusted seamlessly without the churn of hiring or layoffs. This reflects the Fractional pillar, giving you unmatched flexibility.
Built-in reliability – With multiple professionals on your account, you avoid gaps caused by illness, vacations, or turnover. This aligns with the Timely pillar by ensuring dependable delivery.
Seamless integration into your business – The team operates as part of your workflow, aligning with your systems and communication style while introducing process improvements and automation. This is the essence of the Integrated pillar.
Cost effective – You pay for the skill set you need at each stage, avoiding the budget drain of overqualified hires or the delays caused by underqualified ones.
Operational consistency – Processes are documented and managed so nothing depends on a single person’s memory or availability.
Drawbacks of a Fractional Team
Response time – Hiring an internal resource should be the most responsive option of the two as you can dictate instant responses versus working with an external fractional partner or a solo contractor.
More than one point of contact – Communication is with a coordinated group rather than a single individual, which requires a slightly different working style. Most providers nominate a primary point of contact to eliminate this issue.
Initial setup takes planning – Onboarding the team into your systems and processes may take more time than with one person. With that in mind, if process documentation is part of what they do (and they should), this is an up front challenge which pays off over time.
The Solo Consultant Model: Pros and Cons
When choosing a solo option, you typically have two paths: a solo contractor or a solo hire.
A solo contractor works part time and may serve several clients at once. They may even have a day job. While they can be cost-effective and flexible, there is a higher risk they could become unavailable, take on a full-time role elsewhere, or deprioritize your account. The continuity of your operations depends entirely on their commitment.
A solo hire is a part-time or full-time employee. This can solve the dedication issue but often creates a mismatch in skills. You may overhire, paying a high salary for someone who spends much of their time on tasks below their expertise, or underhire, leaving them unable to handle strategic needs. Either way, you carry the burden of salary, benefits, management, and potential turnover.
Advantages of a Solo Consultant or Hire:
Direct relationship – One person to call for everything, with no coordination across multiple team members. For a hire, you control them and can ask them to respond to inquiries immediately or ask them to perform tasks outside of accounting like order food or other admin tasks.
Specialized focus – A consultant may bring deep experience in a narrow area that matches your most urgent need.
Familiarity – They can develop a detailed understanding of your specific business processes over time, especially if they are a full-time hire. The question is, do you have enough work to keep a full-time accountant busy.
Drawbacks of a Solo Consultant or Hire:
Capacity limits – One person can only manage so much volume, creating bottlenecks during peak periods.
Knowledge gaps – No single individual can match the depth of skills across strategy, compliance, reporting, and transaction work.
Continuity risk – If they are unavailable or leave, your function stalls.
Scaling challenges – Adjusting hours or expanding expertise usually means finding and onboarding another person, disrupting workflow.
Higher costs for full-time hires – Salaries, benefits, and overhead can exceed the value of the work being performed.
Lower reliability with contractors – Competing priorities or career changes can leave you scrambling.
The Overhire/Underhire Problem
From our experience, most growing companies either:
Underhire – Relying on one person who cannot deliver the full scope of work, leading to delays and incomplete outputs.
Overhire – Paying for talent well above what is required for most tasks, wasting budget and misallocating resources.
A fractional team solves this by delivering only the skills you need and adjusting as you grow. For example, a $1M company may require mostly bookkeeping and accounting work, while a $10M company benefits from more controller oversight and CFO guidance. A single person cannot efficiently make that shift without disruption.
Choosing the Right Path
If your needs are simple, stable, and highly focused, a solo consultant or hire may be enough for now. But if you are growing, experiencing operational bottlenecks, or need a mix of strategic and tactical skills, the fractional model offers a clear advantage. It delivers the expertise of an entire department, avoids single points of failure, and scales with your business — all while keeping costs aligned with the value delivered.
At Basis 365, our fractional accounting department services are guided by our P-R-O-F-I-T approach, helping service-based companies, consultancies, agencies, and technology firms build strong businesses without the hiring headaches.
