Consulting
Financial Systems, AI & FP&A Consulting
Updated August 2026
A modern finance function: automated close, live dashboards, and AI where it earns its keep. We built ClariFi, an agentic AI decision engine for accounting workflows, and operate StartupCFO.AI, an AI-native finance firm. We provide FP&A consulting, financial systems consulting, and AI finance consulting for small and mid-market businesses and finance teams.
Fixed-fee, retainer, or hourly · written proposal within 48 hours · human review on every AI output.
What we do
Four ways we engage
Every engagement is scoped around a deliverable you keep: a modernized stack, a working planning model, an AI workflow with guardrails, or a design your product team can build against.
Finance-stack modernization
Financial systems consulting for teams outgrowing their tooling: software selection, integration, and migration across the QuickBooks, Xero, and Zoho Books ecosystem, plus the payment, payroll, and reporting tools around them. We design the stack so data flows once, reconciliation is automatic where it can be, and the close stops depending on tribal knowledge.
FP&A build-out
FP&A consulting that leaves something behind: an annual budget wired to your actuals, rolling forecasts that refresh without a weekend of spreadsheet surgery, and KPI dashboards your leadership team actually opens. We build the model, document it, and train your team to run the planning cycle themselves.
See our ongoing FP&A service →AI adoption in the finance function
AI finance consulting from people who ship it, not slideware. We map where agentic AI is production-ready today (document extraction, close checklists, variance narratives, first-draft reporting) and where it is still hype, then implement the ready parts with human-review guardrails on every output. No black boxes signing off on your numbers.
Fintech advisory
Fintech consulting for product teams building finance features into their own software: double-entry ledger design, reconciliation flows, money-movement states, and compliance basics. We have built these systems ourselves, so you get the failure modes up front instead of discovering them in production.
Case in point
We consult on what we have built and run
The advice on this page is not theoretical. Both of these are our own: one we built, one we operate every day. They are why our recommendations come with failure modes attached.
Built by our team · part of Rubric Associates LLC
ClariFi
An agentic AI decision engine for accounting workflows: it reads the ledger, drafts the analysis, and routes every output through human review before it touches a client.
Building ClariFi taught us exactly where agentic AI holds up in production accounting work and where it quietly fails, which prompts, guardrails, and review loops make the difference, and how to scope AI projects so they ship instead of stalling in pilot.
Operated by our team · sister practice, same firm
StartupCFO.AI
An AI-native finance firm for venture-backed startups, run day to day on the modern stack this page describes: automated close, live dashboards, AI-assisted reporting.
Operating StartupCFO.AI taught us what these systems look like under real monthly load across a book of clients: which automations pay for themselves, which dashboards get opened, and what breaks at month-end when theory meets a real close.
Fit check
Who this consulting practice is built for
We work with organizations that already have real numbers and want a better machine around them: cleaner systems, a working planning layer, and automation that survives contact with month-end.
Who it is not for: VC-backed startups. If you are venture-backed, our sister practice StartupCFO.AI is purpose-built for you, same firm, tooling optimized for venture-scale startups, and we will refer you there on the fit call rather than sell you the wrong engagement.
Small and mid-market businesses
Operators who want an automated close, trustworthy dashboards, and a finance stack that scales without adding headcount for every new report.
Family offices
Multi-entity structures that need consolidated reporting, clean data flows across entities, and careful, human-reviewed automation, not a black box.
Finance teams
Controllers and finance leads who want a practitioner to pressure-test the stack, build the FP&A layer, and separate AI signal from vendor noise.
Process
How a consulting engagement works
Five steps from first call to signed scope, designed so you never commit to work you have not seen priced and sequenced in writing.
- 1
Fit call (15 minutes)
A short call to hear the problem and tell you honestly whether consulting is the right tool for it. If the better answer is an off-the-shelf product, an ongoing service, or our sister practice, we say so on this call.
- 2
Discovery session
A working session with the people who touch the numbers: current systems, how the close actually runs, what reporting exists, where the spreadsheets live, and what decision or bottleneck prompted the call.
- 3
Diagnostic review
We go through the stack itself, the ledger, the integrations, the models, the manual steps, and map what should be fixed, automated, rebuilt, or left alone. Where AI is on the table, we test it against your real data before recommending it.
- 4
Findings readout
A written readout of what we found and the sequence we would tackle it in: quick wins first, structural work second, and a clear line between what is worth doing now and what can wait.
- 5
Written proposal within 48 hours
Within 48 hours of the readout you get a written proposal with named deliverables, a timeline, and pricing in whichever model suits you: a fixed cost for the engagement, a retainer, or hourly billing. You know what you are buying before you commit.
Frequently Asked
Consulting questions we hear often
- Do we need to be a Rubric Financial client to engage the consulting practice?
- No. Consulting engagements stand on their own. Many clients come to us only for a systems migration, an FP&A build-out, or an AI adoption roadmap and keep their existing accountant, bookkeeper, and tax preparer in place. If you later want ongoing support, our services are there, but nothing about a consulting engagement requires them.
- Should we build finance tooling ourselves or buy it?
- Usually buy, occasionally build, and the honest answer depends on how differentiated the workflow is. Commodity needs (ledger, payroll, expense management) are almost always better bought and integrated well. Building makes sense when the workflow is core to your product or genuinely unavailable off the shelf. We have done both, ClariFi is a build, most of our stack is bought, so we can walk through the trade-offs with real costs of ownership rather than vendor talking points.
- Is our data used to train AI models?
- No. Client data is never used to train models, ours or anyone else's. AI tooling we deploy runs on enterprise agreements that exclude training on your data, and every AI-generated output in an accounting or finance workflow goes through human review before anyone relies on it. That human-in-the-loop guardrail is a design requirement we build into every engagement, not an option.
- How are consulting engagements priced?
- We price consulting three ways: a fixed cost for the engagement, a retainer model, or hourly billing, whichever model suits you. Pricing depends on volume (number of accounts, transactions, employees, entities) and which services you need. We provide a written proposal within 48 hours of an intro call, and if scope genuinely changes mid-engagement, we re-scope in writing before any new work starts.
- Can you work with our existing accountant or bookkeeper?
- Yes, and most engagements work exactly that way. We design systems, build the FP&A layer, or implement AI workflows, and your existing accountant keeps running the books inside them. We coordinate directly with them during the build and hand over documentation so the improvements survive after we leave.
Keep reading
Building a 13-Week Cash Forecast
The single most useful financial tool for a small business. Not a budget, not a P&L, a weekly cash projection you actually use.
GuidePricing Analysis: Cost-Plus vs. Value-Based
Most owners price by adding margin to cost. The good ones price to the value the customer gets. Here's how to tell which approach fits.
GuideBuilding a KPI Dashboard Your Business Actually Uses
Most KPI dashboards are pretty and ignored. Here's how to build one with the 5–8 numbers that should drive every owner conversation.
One integrated firm
Fractional CFO
Ongoing CFO-level leadership: cash-flow planning, owner and lender reporting, pricing and margin work.
FP&A service
Budgets, rolling forecasts, and KPI dashboards refreshed every month as an ongoing engagement.
The Full Stack
How bookkeeping, accounting, tax, and CFO work as one integrated team under one roof.
Ready for a finance function that runs itself?
Tell us about your systems, your planning cycle, and where the manual work piles up. 15 minutes is enough to know whether we are the right tool, and if we are, you get a written proposal within 48 hours.