Every growth-stage, investor-backed company reaches a point where finance has to mature fast — a funding round closes, an acquisition lands, or a board starts expecting accurate numbers on a tight cadence.
Leaders face a build decision with a few real options: hire and build a finance department in-house, hand the whole function to a Finance as a Service (FaaS) partner, keep your systems and offload the back office through a managed model, or augment a lean team with outside specialists.
Each option trades cost, speed, and control differently.
For most investor-backed companies, the math favors a partner: 87% of investor-backed finance leaders now work with a third-party finance and accounting partner. This guide compares building in-house against FaaS — what each costs, how fast it stands up, what you actually get, and how to tell which fits your stage.
FaaS vs. Building In-House
A complete in-house finance department is expensive long before it’s effective. A typical team runs from a CFO and controller down through finance managers, accountants, and support staff. At market rates, a CFO commands $250K+, a controller $150K+, and a finance manager $100K+, with loaded costs adding roughly 20% on top for benefits, payroll taxes, and recruiting.
Even a lean two-person setup of a bookkeeper and an accountant clears six figures before you’ve bought a single piece of software.
The harder cost is time and talent. Standing up systems internally commonly takes 12 to 18 months, and the hiring market is brutal: 81% of finance leaders take at least four months to fill a senior accountant or analyst role, with about half reporting their teams are understaffed. Here’s how the two models compare head to head.
| Factor | Building In-House | FaaS |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Full salaries, benefits, recruiting, and software | Predictable fee, typically 20–40% lower |
| Time to stand up | 12–18 months to hire and implement | 30–90 days to a working function |
| Technology | You select, buy, and integrate the stack | Integrated, AI-enabled platform included |
| Control | Direct, day-to-day management | Shared platform visibility, less hands-on |
| Customization | Fully tailored to your processes | Standardized best practices, some tailoring |
| Scalability | Hire and fire to flex capacity | Flex up and down without a hiring cycle |
| Controls | Hard to separate duties on a small team | Segregation of duties built in from day one |
In-house buys control and customization; FaaS buys speed, lower cost, built-in technology, and stronger controls. A small in-house team often can’t separate duties, which creates fraud risk, while a partner builds documented internal controls and segregation of duties into the workflow from the start.
Which set of trade-offs wins depends on your stage and how much finance is a core differentiator for your business.
What You’re Buying With FaaS
FaaS is a finance operation assembled from three parts — systems, process, and people — that would otherwise take a year or more to build and staff internally. Here’s what’s included in the package.
The model is modular. You can start with transactional accounting and a managed close, then layer on FP&A or strategic CFO support as the business scales. If you’re rethinking the shape of the team itself, our guide to building a modern finance team is a useful companion.
SIMPL®: The Platform Layer
The piece that separates FaaS from simple staff augmentation is the platform. SIMPL® is Consero’s reporting and engagement layer, and it’s where a leadership team experiences the service day to day.
SIMPL® combines your general ledger, accounts payable, and accounts receivable into one real-time view and translates it into business language — with role-based, self-service access for everyone who touches finance.
- Financial statements
- Receivables and payables
- Cash management
- E-payments
- Dashboards
- Business KPIs
- Customer revenue
- Vendor spend
- Department-specific spending summaries
- Budget-vs-actual visibility
- Vendor expense approvals
- Employee expense approvals
Because every view pulls from a single source of truth, leaders get real-time financial reporting in plain business language, available the moment they log in.
The 30–90 Day Onboarding Timeline
Speed is where the model earns its keep. A pre-integrated, AI-enabled stack means the finance function reaches maturity in weeks, on a defined path.
From kickoff to an optimized finance function
Building the same capability in-house or with a traditional VAR partner: 9–18 months and $80K–$150K+ in implementation fees before the first clean close.
Standing up an enterprise-grade ERP is the slow part of any finance build; traditional implementations with a value-added reseller run 9 to 18 months, as our ERP implementation guide lays out. Consero compresses that to weeks with a pre-configured platform.
When PixelMEDIA’s new CFO set out to modernize finances across three companies, Consero ran a full cash-to-accrual conversion onto Sage Intacct within 90 days and helped integrate two acquisitions in a single year, at least twice as fast as building in-house.
What FaaS Costs
FaaS is priced as a predictable, solution-based fee that scales with what you need — heavier during a funding round or an acquisition, lighter afterward. Against a fixed in-house team that grows with every hire and raise, that flexibility is where the savings compound, typically 20 to 40 percent.
The savings are real in practice. OK2Charge reduced ongoing finance costs by 58% compared with building in-house; its founder describes getting “the expertise of an outsourced finance VP and a top-notch platform for the same cost as a mid-tier accounting employee.”
Why Consero
The track record is the rest of the buying case.
Behind those numbers is an AI-native back office. Consero deploys bill coding that’s 70% more accurate than manual processing and automated cash application that handles 200,000 bank transactions untouched, cutting turnaround by 300%.
The results show up in client outcomes: findhelp adds a million new users a month on a lean two-person internal finance team augmented by Consero.
Is FaaS Right for You?
There’s no universal answer, but the decision usually comes down to a few clear signals.
- Build in-house if finance is a core competitive differentiator, your processes are highly specialized, and you have the budget and patience to recruit and retain senior talent.
- Choose FaaS if you need a functioning operation quickly, want modern systems without the build, are scaling through growth or acquisitions, or have outgrown entry-level software.
- Go hybrid if you want to keep certain functions in-house while a partner runs the rest — a common and effective middle path.
Talent pressure pushes many companies toward a partner: senior finance hires are slow and costly to land, and a small team spread across transactions, close, and analysis tends to let reporting slip first.
Buying FaaS With Confidence
A modern finance operation acts as CFO insurance: clean books, a fast close, and diligence-ready financials waiting whenever a funding round, acquisition, or exit arrives.
Building that capability alone is slow and expensive, which is why the vast majority of investor-backed companies now run finance with a partner.
Consero delivers the platform, automation, and expert team as one operation that scales with you. Request a consultation and we’ll map the trade-offs to your stage.
Talk to a Consero finance expert about what a modern, AI-enabled F&A function looks like for your business. We’ll map it out together — it’s 30 minutes, zero pressure.
No sales pitch. Just a roadmap tailored to you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can we keep our existing ERP and software, or do we have to switch?
You can keep them. Consero’s Flex Finance model manages your back office on your current systems and processes — order to cash, AP, revenue recognition, close, and reporting — without a platform migration. Full FaaS is the route when you also want a new, pre-integrated stack.
What happens to our existing finance staff?
Most companies redeploy their people to higher-value work. Consero takes over transactional and close operations, freeing controllers and analysts for FP&A, strategic projects, and business partnering. Understaffed teams get capacity, and stretched teams get specialists on demand.
How does pricing change as we grow or go through a funding round or acquisition?
The fee flexes with scope. It runs heavier during a raise, audit, or integration when activity spikes, then settles back as things normalize. You add tiers like FP&A or strategic CFO support when you need them, with no hiring cycle.
Will outsourcing finance hurt our audit or due-diligence readiness?
It improves it. A partner builds documented controls, segregation of duties, and a consistent close into the workflow, so the books stay diligence-ready. CFOs with a finance partner report feeling materially more prepared for their next audit and funding event than those without one.
How disruptive is the transition mid-year?
Less than most teams expect. Onboarding follows a defined 30-to-90-day path with a parallel run before cutover, so reporting continues uninterrupted. Companies routinely transition mid-quarter and close the very next month on the new operation.
