For CPAs, Financial Advisors & Small Business Advocates

Your clients need someone in their corner who's actually run a business.

KPI Direct fills the business-performance seat on a founder's advisory team — bookkeeping, management accounting, FP&A, and fractional CFO support from people who've built and run companies. We don't prepare returns, advise on tax, or manage wealth. We work alongside the advisors your clients already trust.

Book a 20-Minute Partner Call See how we partner

Nearly every client we serve came to us by referral — most often from a CPA.

MBA-led operators · 100% onshore team · QuickBooks Online specialists · Supporting entrepreneurs and small business owners since 2006

A good team in their corner

No founder builds it alone.

Growing a company takes a team of trusted advisors, and three seats matter most. Most owners have one or two filled. We're usually the missing one.

Seat one

Tax & compliance

A CPA or tax professional: structure, planning, filings, and the confidence it's all correct. A career's worth of mastery, applied to law that changes every year.

Seat two

Business performance

KPI Direct: how the business actually makes money. Cash, margin, pricing, forecasting, whether the next hire pencils out. Operating judgment, earned in the owner's seat.

Seat three

Personal & family wealth

A financial advisor: turning what the business produces into long-term security for the owner, their family, and whatever comes next.

Owners don't sort their goals into tax, business, and wealth. It's one picture — and it works best when their advisors are aligned around it.
Plenty of others help build that team. Bankers and credit unions, attorneys, chambers of commerce, SBA resource partners, and economic-development organizations are often a founder's first call. If owners turn to you, we'd like to be on your short list.
Complementary, not competing

Two kinds of expertise, one owner in the middle.

Tax & financial expertise

Built on law, licensure, and professional standards — structure, timing, planning, filings, and the discipline of protecting what an owner has earned.

Both take a career to master. We're not licensed for either, and we don't attempt them.

Operating expertise

Built on experience and the scar tissue that comes with it. Making payroll, carrying inventory, missing a forecast, pricing something wrong — and learning exactly what each one cost.

That's what powers business-performance consulting, and it's hard to acquire any other way.

These circles overlap, naturally — the owner sits in the middle. Where we touch the same questions, we coordinate rather than compete.
Why we're a different kind of partner

We're operators who happen to do the accounting.

Many outsourced accounting firms can close a month. Fewer have sat where your clients sit.

Before founding KPI Direct, Scott Badger was chief executive of a founder-led product company — recruiting capital, restructuring operations, launching products, and carrying the P&L that turned a closely held business into a profitable, multi-million-dollar one. He later founded a digital marketing agency, served as interim leadership inside growing companies, and spent four years as part-time CFO of a B2B SaaS ecommerce company.

That's the seat your clients are in. We've been in it — including the parts that left scars.

We've carried the P&L

Capital raised, operations restructured, products launched, a multi-million-dollar outcome. Not theory — consequences.

Judgment paired with technical depth

Operating experience is only half of it. Luana Crawford, our VP of Client Services, is an expert in QuickBooks, management accounting, and financial modeling — designing and troubleshooting the systems underneath, so every report serves a clear business purpose.

Consulting-grade rigor

Transformation work for American Express, Marriott, and Allstate at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, long before we touched a small-business ledger. Your clients meet a professional, and so do you.

Clear lanes, by design

What we do — and what we'll never touch

We're MBA-led finance operators — not a CPA firm, not a wealth manager. We run the numbers and the operating advice; the rest stays with you.

✓ We do
  • Bookkeeping and management accounting on QuickBooks Online
  • FP&A — forecasting, budgets, cash-flow modeling, KPI dashboards
  • Fractional Controller and CFO leadership
  • Business-performance consulting: pricing, margin, unit economics, growth decisions
  • A clean, CPA-ready package at year-end, handed to you
  • Refer our clients to you for tax, wealth, lending, and legal work
✕ We never
  • Prepare income-tax returns
  • Advise on tax — we're not licensed to, and we don't
  • Provide investment or wealth-management advice
  • Compete with your firm's own advisory work
  • Come between you and your client
However it fits your firm

Three ways to work together.

Every firm draws the line in a different place. We'll work whichever way serves your client relationship best.

White-label

Behind your brand

We deliver under your name. Your firm owns the client, the relationship, and the billing. Your clients experience your team going deeper, not a vendor arriving.

Economics: wholesale rate to your firm; you set your own client pricing.
Side-by-side

In the room together

Both names on the engagement. We join client meetings as your finance partner, with clear lanes and shared goals — and you get the credit for bringing in the right specialist.

Economics: we bill the client directly for our scope; no fee to your firm.
Referral

A clean hand-off

You make an introduction; we take it from there, keeping you as involved as you'd like. Your client comes back to you better organized than they left.

Economics: we bill the client directly. No referral fees — reciprocal referrals and good work.
All three rest on the same foundation. Clean, current books every month of the year — and a tidy, CPA-ready package waiting at year-end instead of a cleanup project in April.
⇆

Referrals flow both ways

Nearly every client we have came to us by referral, most often from a CPA — so we know what that trust is worth. Our clients regularly need a tax professional, a wealth advisor, a banker, or an attorney, and we send them to the partners who take good care of the people we share. We're helping our clients build the same team you are.

Built on referrals

A partner other advisors already trust

Our partner channel isn't theoretical. It's how this practice was built.

20+
clients referred by CPAs and advisors — and retained
20 yrs
supporting entrepreneurs and small business owners
3×
Inc. 5000 honoree — we grew through the same stages your clients are in
100%
onshore, team-based delivery
Common questions

What partners ask us first

Will you compete with the advisory work we already do?
No. Our advisory is business-performance work built on operating experience: cash, margin, pricing, forecasting, growth decisions. Yours is built on tax law or wealth strategy. Where the questions overlap — and some will — we coordinate with you rather than around you. Many partners use us white-label precisely so they can offer this capability under their own brand.
Do you advise on tax?
Never. We're not a CPA firm and we're not licensed to advise on tax — that work stays entirely with you. We make sure the numbers underneath your advice are accurate and current, and hand you a clean, CPA-ready package at year-end.
How does the money work?
It depends on how we work together. If you refer a client, we bill them directly — no fees, just reciprocal referrals and good work. If we deliver under your brand, you pay a wholesale rate and set your own client pricing. We'll be straight with you about the numbers on the first call.
What does "operators" actually mean?
It means we've run companies, not only reported on them. Our founder was chief executive of a founder-led product business — raising capital, restructuring operations, carrying the P&L — and has since served as an interim executive and fractional CFO. When your client asks a business question, they get more than a report.
What if the client doesn't use QuickBooks Online?
QuickBooks Online is our specialty and where we do our best work. Reach out and we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right fit.
Let's compare notes

Let's make sure we're pulling in the same direction.

The owners we both serve juggle business decisions, tax exposure, and family goals all at once. We'd like to compare notes on the clients you have in mind, and find the way of working together that fits your firm best.

Book a 20-Minute Partner Call