You are evaluating an outsourced accounting engagement and you want to know what you actually get, what it costs and who does the work, before you call anyone. This page puts what their website publishes next to how Steven Palmieri runs a one-person engagement, and it is written to stay useful even if you pick them. If you are looking for careers or the employee portal at NOW CFO™, this is not that page; this is a comparison for business owners choosing a CFO service. NOW CFO™ is a trademark of its owner. This site is an independent comparison by Steven Palmieri (Palmieri Enterprises) and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by NOW CFO.
Nobody searches a company name to read a definition of outsourced accounting. You are shopping fractional CFO services because someone quoted you, or because you are about to ask for a quote, and you want the shape of the thing before you sit through a consult. Three questions are usually underneath that search, and both firms should answer all three before you sign anything.
An accounting engagement can mean one person keeping your books, a bench of specialists assembled by seniority, or a finance executive one or two days a week. Those are different products wearing the same label, and the difference shows up in your month rather than in the proposal.
Hourly work and a quoted monthly scope behave differently once a year gets busy. One bills the hours the month required, the other names a number and absorbs the variance. Find out which one you are signing before you start comparing rates.
When a lender wants a statement or a return is due, you need to know whether one named person owns your numbers or whether your file moves across a team by seniority. Both are legitimate ways to run it. They do not feel the same from your side of the desk.
According to their website, NOW CFO places outsourced, fractional and temporary finance staff into your company, describing the work as outsourced, fractional, and temporary CFO, Controller, and operational accounting services that suit the needs of your business. Their home page states 15,000+ clients and 20+ locations, and says they partner with every industry. Engagements begin with a complimentary consultation, then a match to a professional, then an engagement whose terms and timeline you set. The services are published in three tiers by seniority, so you can buy at the staff accountant level, add a controller, add a CFO, or take all three.
Their site lists budgeting and forecasting, financial planning and analysis, cash flow management, KPIs and dashboards, board and investor reporting, treasury management, margin improvement, and mergers and acquisitions.
Their site lists month-end close, audit preparation, financial reporting, transaction accounting, systems implementation, technical accounting, internal controls and chart of accounts design.
Their site lists bank reconciliations, journal entries, general ledger maintenance, accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll administration, inventory management and master data management. Outsourced bookkeeping and permanent placement are listed as well.
On money their site is direct: hourly rates, no hidden fees, no long-term requirements, and services provided on an hourly basis with no contracts. They do not publish their own hourly rate anywhere we could find. Their fractional CFO page does publish a range for engagements of that kind, stating that most ongoing engagements run $3,000 to $10,000 a month, and describing the role as one to two days a week per client. Read that page yourself; the source URLs sit at the bottom of this one.
Bookkeeping, bills, invoices and payroll are posted inside your file, and the month gets closed rather than left open until somebody needs it. Both sides stay current every month: your finances as the company, and your finances as the owner.
Planning sits inside the monthly work instead of arriving as a separate spring product, so the decisions that move a tax bill get made while there is still a year left to act in. Last year's return gets a second look for what it left on the table.
You work with Steven Palmieri directly, remotely across the country and in person around DFW when that helps. No audit or attestation work; returns are prepared and filed, and the person who closed your books is the person who explains them.
Take these to whoever you call. First, who personally performs my monthly close, and do I meet that person before I sign? Second, is tax planning inside this fee, or billed separately when December arrives? Third, what happens to the price in a month that needs a cleanup? Send your answers, or the proposal you are holding, and you will get a plain read on which model fits, including the times when the answer is the other firm.
Their model staffs it by seniority. According to their website you can engage a staff accountant for reconciliations, journal entries, payables and payroll administration, and place a controller or CFO above that, filling gaps in an existing accounting department on an interim or fractional basis. Here there is no bench to assemble: Steven Palmieri does the close and the reporting, and you talk to him about both. If you already employ a bookkeeper and what you need is somebody senior sitting above them, a staffing model is the more natural fit, and you should say so on the call.
Their published service lists are finance and accounting work: forecasting, month-end close, audit preparation, internal controls, payroll administration. Their fractional CFO page describes the role as financial strategy, budgeting and forecasting, cash flow management, risk oversight and investor reporting. Tax return preparation does not appear on the service pages we read, so an owner in that model normally keeps a separate tax preparer. Here the planning and the filing sit with the same person keeping the books, which is the difference between planning before December and reacting after the year has closed.
Their site says the work is hourly, with no contracts and no long-term requirement. That is genuinely attractive when the scope is a project with an end date, and it means a recurring monthly bill moves with the hours a month happened to need. Steven Palmieri does not publish rates; scope and fee get set on the call, once you both know what the books actually need. Either way, ask both firms the same question: what happens to my invoice in a month that contains a cleanup, an audit request and a financing deadline?
Their path is a complimentary consultation, a match to a professional, then an engagement on terms and a timeline you set. Here the first step is a 20-minute call where the numbers get looked at rather than described, and you leave with what to fix first whether or not you hire anybody. Both firms will talk to you for free. The thing worth watching is who shows up on the second call, and whether that is the person who will be doing the work.