Virtual CFO Rosebery | Sydney Virtual CFO
A virtual CFO for Rosebery design and product founders: contribution margin per order, inventory as weeks of cover, and the cash tied in stock before peak.
Rosebery’s warehouse conversions have filled with design studios and product businesses, and the founders running them share one recurring problem: strong-looking sales, thin-feeling cash, and stock that quietly swallows both. The work is contribution margin per order and the cash tied up in inventory. A virtual CFO engagement here makes both visible before a stock build catches you short.
Published: July 2026
Rosebery, in the band of former industrial suburbs south of the city, has become a cluster of design, product, and creative-adjacent businesses occupying its converted warehouse spaces. The founder economy here is product-led: businesses that design, source, or make physical goods and sell them, often direct to consumer alongside wholesale or retail.
For these founders the finance gap is rarely revenue; it is margin clarity and cash. A product business can grow its top line steadily while its cash goes backwards, because the profit is sitting in stock. This page is for the product founder at $2M and up who is tired of not knowing where the cash went.
Contribution margin per order is the first: what a typical order actually makes after cost of goods, freight, payment fees, returns, and the real cost of acquiring the customer. Founders often know their gross margin and have no idea of their contribution margin, which is the one that determines whether growth funds itself.
The second is inventory measured as weeks of cover: how much stock the business is holding relative to how fast it sells, which turns a vague sense of “we have a lot of stock” into a number. The third is the cash tied up in stock ahead of a peak, the seasonal build that can leave a profitable business unable to pay for the very inventory that will drive its best quarter.
For a Rosebery founder the natural deliverable is a unit economics build showing true contribution per order, paired with an inventory and cash model. Take a product business at $3.5M revenue: the model shows a healthy gross margin but a contribution margin thinned by freight, returns, and rising acquisition cost, and reveals that the pre-peak stock build ties up cash for roughly three months before the season pays it back. The founder can now fix the margin leaks and time the stock build to the cash rather than the calendar. This is a fixed 90-Day Number engagement at $17,850 plus GST, yours to run. The order economics build on ecommerce unit economics and the stock side on inventory buying plans.
Scoped, fixed, finite: one deliverable, ninety days, handed over with a working session, no retainer or auto-renewal. The same approach serves founders nearby in Alexandria and Waterloo.
A useful virtual CFO engagement in this postcode does not end with a thicker reporting pack. It ends with one artefact the founder can run without us: usually a 13-week cashflow tied to real pipeline and payroll, a unit economics or margin view that changes pricing or hiring, a fundraise-ready model if a raise is inside a year, or a board pack that replaces slide theatre with two or three decisions. The commercial wrapper is fixed: the 90-Day Number is $17,850 plus GST, paid in three instalments, one named deliverable by day 90. No open-ended retainer required to get a finished tool.
If you already have a bookkeeper, keep them. This work sits on top of clean actuals; it does not replace bank reconciliation. If your actuals are not trustworthy, fix the ledger first, then build the decision layer. Nearby founders in linked suburbs face the same shape of problem with different industry textures, use the internal links in this article to compare, then choose the deliverable that answers the question that is actually expensive right now.
Sydney Virtual CFO’s front-door product is the 90-Day Number: one named deliverable in ninety days for $17,850 plus GST, typically paid as three instalments of $5,950. That is deliberately different from the common Australian virtual CFO retainer band often quoted around $3,000-$8,000+ per month open-ended. Project pricing fits founders who need a finished cashflow, model, unit-economics build or board pack they can run, not an indefinite meeting cadence. If you need ongoing fractional CFO after day 90, that is a separate, scoped decision, not an automatic rollover. If you only need bookkeeping, this is the wrong product; keep a bookkeeper and use virtual CFO work for decisions on top of clean actuals.
What is the difference between gross margin and contribution margin?
Gross margin is revenue less cost of goods. Contribution margin goes further, subtracting freight, payment fees, returns, and customer acquisition cost, to show what an order actually leaves behind. Founders often know the first and not the second, yet the second is what determines whether growth funds itself or drains cash.
Why does my cash go backwards while sales grow?
Because product businesses lock profit in inventory. You pay for stock ahead of selling it, and growth, especially a seasonal build, extends that gap. The profit is real but sitting on the shelf, which is why a growing product business can feel permanently short of cash despite a healthy top line.
What does “inventory as weeks of cover” mean?
It expresses your stock level as the number of weeks of sales it represents, turning “we hold a lot of stock” into a precise number. Too many weeks of cover ties up cash unnecessarily; too few risks stockouts. Measuring it lets you right-size the stock and free cash without starving demand.
How do I plan a seasonal stock build without running out of cash?
By modelling the cash the build ties up and for how long, against your cash position and the season’s expected payback. That tells you when to place stock, how much, and whether you need a facility to bridge the gap, rather than committing to a build on optimism and discovering the shortfall mid-season.
Do you handle our ecommerce platform or bookkeeping?
No. Those stay as they are. A virtual CFO uses the data they produce to build contribution margin and inventory cash models, the decision layer on top of your records.
What does it cost?
A fixed $17,850 plus GST for one named deliverable by day 90, no retainer. The common Australian alternative is an open-ended monthly retainer at $3,000 to $8,000; the project-based model is deliberately different and rare in this market.
What happens after ninety days?
You keep the model and run it yourself. There is no default roll-on to a retainer; a further deliverable is scoped separately if needed.
Sydney Virtual CFO is a Sydney-based virtual CFO service for founders running $2M to $15M businesses across SaaS, ecommerce, professional services, construction, and other low-volume, high-value industries. We deliver fixed-scope CFO engagements with a named deliverable on day 90: a 13-week cashflow forecast, a fundraise-ready financial model, a unit economics build, or a board reporting pack you can run on your own.
Our front-door product, the 90-Day Number, is fixed scope at $17,850 plus GST. We are one of the few project-based virtual CFOs in Australia, in a market built almost entirely on monthly retainers. No retainers without a deliverable. No 80-page reports. No theatre.
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This content is general information only, written for Australian founders running businesses in the $2M to $15M revenue range. It does not constitute tax, financial product, investment, or legal advice and should not be relied on as such. The work referenced is led by a Chartered Accountant (CA ANZ), but Sydney Virtual CFO is not a licensed tax agent, not a licensed financial adviser, and not authorised to provide personal financial advice. Tax obligations, accounting treatments, fundraise terms, and statutory requirements depend on your individual circumstances. For advice specific to your business, contact the team directly or consult a registered tax agent, licensed financial adviser, or qualified lawyer. Information was current at the time of publication and may change without notice. We review and update guides periodically.
