What it costs
Published, because a buyer comparing three providers should not have to ask.
Start with an hour, a fixed-price inspection, or a day a month, depending on what the business actually needs. Project work is quoted as a fixed fee once the scope is written, because a facility, a settlement and a tender are not bought by the day.
On-demand CFO
R14 500 a month
Eight hours of my own time, drawn as you need them. An hour on a call, twenty minutes on a bank letter, half a day on the numbers before the board meeting. Past the eight, R1 813 an hour. The hours are for the month and do not carry over. Month to month, thirty days notice.
Start here
R24 500 fixed
The Finance Inspection. One entity. A group, or work across a border, is R45 000. Payable before the work starts, and credited in full against the first month if a retainer follows.
The day rate behind everything
R14 500 a day
R1 813 an hour on an eight hour day, so you can compare it. Half day R8 500. Project work is quoted as a fixed fee once the scope is written. Excluding VAT.
Part-time financial director
From one day a month
Billed at the day rate, on a named day. More days when the business needs them. Three months, then month to month, thirty days notice.
A day is eight working hours of my own time. At your table or remote, your call. It includes the preparation before and the write-up after, so the same day is not billed twice. It is invoiced in whole and half days worked, or in whole hours on the on-demand tier, never in six-minute units and never rounded up.
Where that rate sits
What the same hour costs at a professional firm, by grade, on published South African rates.
| At a professional firm | Per hour |
|---|---|
| Partner, director or specialist | R3 491 |
| Senior manager or specialist, CA(SA) | R3 057 |
| Manager, CA(SA) | R1 961 |
| Kanton-West | R1 813 |
| Assistant manager, CA(SA) | R1 331 |
Rates excluding VAT. Kanton-West sits below the manager rate, and the work is done by one person with twenty years as CFO, financial director and GM Finance. Project work is still bought by the day, because a facility, a settlement or a tender is not an hourly job. The hour is sold inside the on-demand tier only, where the question is short and the answer to it is the whole of the work.
Rebuilding a ledger is not CFO work and is not billed at the CFO day rate. Where the books have to be caught up, that is quoted as a separate fixed fee off the Inspection, at what the work is worth, and the number is said out loud before anyone starts.
Against a full-time financial director
Year one, on Kanton-West's published rates.
| Year one | Full-time FD | Kanton-West, 1 day a month |
|---|---|---|
| Package, financial director or CFO | R2 100 000 | -- |
| Employer costs, levies, workspace, equipment | R80 000 | Nil |
| Recruitment service fee, at Kanton-West's published 12.5% | R262 500 | Nil |
| Fees, 12 days at R14 500 | -- | R174 000 |
| The Finance Inspection | -- | R24 500 |
| Year one | R2 442 500 | R198 500 |
| Year two onward | R2 180 000 | R174 000 |
The honest way to read that. A day a month is about one working day in twenty, and the fee is roughly a twelfth of one financial director's package. You are buying the seat pro rata, not a discount. And what you do not get. Nobody in the building on a Tuesday afternoon. Nobody to do the data capture. Nobody whose only job is you. If the business needs a full-time financial director, the honest answer is to hire one, and Kanton-West will find that person. That service is priced on the finance hiring page.
Standing, scope and terms sets out the registrations, what is refused, and what a single-person practice owes a client in writing.