What is a hybrid finance team model?

A model that combines in-house finance staff with an outside accounting provider or fractional CFO. In the version used by Ottavio Siani, a fractional CFO and founder of Triangle Coffee, in-house staff handle new and unusual items and review reports, while the provider handles routine processing and produces the reports.

How many clients should an outsourced accountant handle?

Siani considers four or five clients per accountant a good answer. When he heard 20, the team did good work but was stretched uncomfortably thin.

Can accounting be fully automated with AI?

Siani advised skepticism. Three or four of his clients who signed up for fully automated accounting ended up with books unclosed for months. He uses AI heavily for modeling but keeps a person responsible for reviewing every output.

How do you introduce an outsourced accounting partner to existing staff?

Lay out the full list of work, show it’s more than the current team can handle, and divide it so in-house staff review rather than produce reports. Siani said convincing people usually takes a couple of months.

Does a hybrid finance team eventually move fully in-house?

Not in Siani’s experience with small and mid-sized companies. In-house and outside capacity tend to grow together, sometimes with an in-house controller who reviews the provider’s work.

Building Your Finance Team: Four Decisions for a Hybrid In-House and Outsourced Model

Scrubbed

Building Your Finance Team: Four Decisions for a Hybrid In-House and Outsourced Model

At A Glance
Building Your Finance Team was the closing conversation at The Future Is Fractional 2026, hosted by Scrubbed on September 24, 2026. Scrubbed’s Debra Andrews spoke with Ottavio Siani, a fractional CFO who also founded Triangle Coffee, which runs eight cafes across the Boston area and Washington, D.C. They walked through four decisions: whether to hire in-house or use a provider, how to vet an accounting partner, what to do in the first 90 days, and how to scale a hybrid team, plus where AI fits. The short version: divide work by context, vet partners on workload and industry fit, and expect in-house and outside capacity to grow together.

Few finance leaders face a clean choice between building a team in-house and handing the work to a provider. Most end up with a mix. The harder questions are how to divide the work, how to choose a partner, and how to make the arrangement hold as the company grows.

Session 5, the closing session of The Future Is Fractional 2026, a virtual conference hosted by finance and accounting advisory firm Scrubbed on September 24, 2026, took on those questions. Scrubbed Chief Marketing Officer Debra Andrews walked through four decision points with Ottavio Siani, a fractional CFO who also runs his own multi-location business, so he sees both the advice and the result.

Key Takeaways:
Divide work by context. In-house staff handle what’s new and unusual; a partner handles the routine.
Vet partners on workload, industry fit and software knowledge, not just price. Four or five clients per accountant is a good answer, in Siani’s view.
Be skeptical of full-automation promises. Several of his clients’ books went unclosed for months after trying them.
Set cadences and communication rules early. Review cash weekly and the close monthly, and agree on response times.
Bring the existing team along. Show them the work they’ll gain time for.
Expect in-house and outside capacity to grow together. A provider scales in small steps; in-house hiring moves in big ones.
Use AI, but keep a person accountable. AI can build the models; someone still has to give them a real read.

What is a hybrid finance team? A hybrid finance team combines in-house finance staff with an outside provider, such as an outsourced or offshore accounting team or a fractional CFO. In Siani’s model, the in-house person supplies context and reviews the work, while the provider handles routine processing and produces reports.

Meet the Speakers

Debra Andrews (moderator): Chief Marketing Officer, Scrubbed.
Ottavio Siani: Founder of Triangle Coffee, which runs eight cafes across the Boston area and Washington, D.C., and a fractional CFO for seven or eight years, serving more than 10 companies.

Decision 1: In-house or outsourced accounting? Usually Both

Siani typically does both. Any finance support that isn’t full-time inside the company still needs someone inside to explain what’s happening day to day.

He used his cafes as the example. A recurring charge from the same milk supplier needs no discussion; the offshore team knows the vendor from a shared vendor list and books it correctly. But a new coffee roaster is different. The name may not say what the company does, and the purchase might be an experiment that belongs in a research budget rather than cost of goods sold. Someone on-site has to explain it.
How Siani divides the work

	In-House Finance Staff	Outsourced or Offshore provider
Transactions	New vendors, new charges, anything new or unusual	Recurring charges from known vendors on a shared list
Context	Explains what a purchase is for and where it belongs	Books it correctly once the context is clear
Reports	Reviews them	Produces them
As the company grows	An in-house controller may read the provider’s reports and design processes	Scales its time with the business

That split gets more leverage out of the in-house person's time. “They’re not booking the debit and credit. Instead, they’re just dealing with the new vendors, the new charges, anything new that’s happening,” while the offshore team, in his case Scrubbed, handles the rest.

Decision 2: How to Vet an accounting partner

Standardizing data across disconnected systems

That split gets more leverage out of the in-house person's time. “They’re not booking the debit and credit. Instead, they’re just dealing with the new vendors, the new charges, anything new that’s happening,” while the offshore team, in his case Scrubbed, handles the rest.

Accounting partner vetting checklist

Question to Ask What Siani looks for
How many clients does each accountant handle? Four or five is a good answer. He once heard 20; the team did good work but was grinding uncomfortably hard.
Have they worked in your kind of business? His clients usually sell physical products, which brings inventory, payables, receivables and working capital challenges that software-only experience may not cover.
Can they advise on software? Firms that work with many companies know which inventory or accounting tools fit which situations.
How does the price compare with a full-time hire? He always runs that comparison, and it eliminates some options quickly.
Are they promising full automation? A warning sign.

On automation promises: AI tools are getting closer to automating larger portions of finance work, he acknowledged. But three or four of his clients signed up with companies promising fully automated accounting. It was “a disaster.” Books went unclosed for months while they tried to raise money, and he was brought in to clean up. “I’d be skeptical of any promise that… somebody will fully automate your accounting.”

Decision 3: The first 90 days with a new finance partner

Question to Ask	What Siani looks for
How many clients does each accountant handle?	Four or five is a good answer. He once heard 20; the team did good work but was grinding uncomfortably hard.
Have they worked in your kind of business?	His clients usually sell physical products, which brings inventory, payables, receivables and working capital challenges that software-only experience may not cover.
Can they advise on software?	Firms that work with many companies know which inventory or accounting tools fit which situations.
How does the price compare with a full-time hire?	He always runs that comparison, and it eliminates some options quickly.
Are they promising full automation?	A warning sign.

It depends on the starting point, Siani said. Onboarding a partner at a company with little prior activity is straightforward. He also joined one company, working alongside Scrubbed, that had nine months of unclosed books and a botched attempt to consolidate two entities. There, the priority was indicative reports that gave executives a handle on the business, not a perfect close.
Assuming no crisis, his foundation is cadence:

Weekly, focused on cash: where it’s coming from and where it’s going.
Monthly, reviewing the close.
In both meetings, a roadmap and a prioritized issue list. Not everything gets fixed in the first close. If inventory balances are the biggest worry, start there and leave a mostly accurate receivables process for later.

Agree on communication rules

Companies and firms have different communication styles. Some companies only move when someone writes in all caps; a third-party firm sending polite emails and waiting may not realize that. Sometimes the fix is as simple as an agreed subject line: 'URGENT,' with a clear deadline and what happens if it's missed. So Siani sets explicit rules:

Channel Expected Response
Email Within 48 hours
Email marked urgent Within 24 hours
WhatsApp message As soon as possible

Bring the existing team along
In-house staff often worry when a provider arrives. Occasionally, Siani acknowledged, someone is underperforming and being replaced. More often, the existing team is simply maxed out. He calms the nervousness by laying out the full list of work, showing it’s too much for the current team, and dividing it: “You will be reviewing this report. You will not be producing the report.” Convincing people that the provider frees them to focus on what they uniquely can do usually takes a couple of months.
He also keeps channels limited. Spreading requests across email, Slack and chat is hard to track, and a provider serving other clients will give better service when you don’t make its work more complicated.

Channel	Expected Response
Email	Within 48 hours
Email marked urgent	Within 24 hours
WhatsApp message	As soon as possible

Decision 4: Scaling a Hybrid Finance Team

Outside capacity scales more smoothly. A third party can scale “more linearly,” Siani said. Hiring in-house moves in steps, and part-time hires are hard to find: bring someone on, carry extra capacity until the company grows into it, then run short and hire again. A provider lets you add time as you grow.

The two tend to grow together. He hasn’t yet seen a hybrid model outgrow its third-party resource at the small and mid-sized companies he works with. At some companies he has hired an in-house controller who then reads the provider’s reports and helps design the processes behind them. Large companies do this too, he noted, often using third parties for parts of the finance operation such as accounts receivable.

AI for fractional CFOs: Faster models, Same accountability

A person stays responsible. Siani agreed with the consensus from earlier sessions: a person must stay responsible for the output. Because AI tools can be so easy to work with, “it’s easy to kind of get a little lazy and not review something.” People signing off on information need to feel responsible enough to give it a real read.

A year of progress.. He works mainly with Claude and says it has improved dramatically since a year ago, when the common complaint was that AI made things up and couldn't be trusted.. In one engagement, he spent nine months rebuilding a client’s finance function after a bad experience with previous providers. Much of the work was building financial models for a fundraiser. “I didn’t type a single formula into Excel.” He structured the models, commented on them and built in quality checks while the Claude did the building. A year earlier, he said, he’d have told you that building Excel models is what most people pay a fractional CFO for. “It’s a tool that’s too powerful to be ignored.”

Across all four decisions, Siani's answer was rarely either-or. Keep the context and the review inside the company, let a partner carry the volume, and let both grow as the business does.
This session is part of The Future is Fractional 2026. For how team design connected every conversation at the event, read Own the Core, Access the Rest: What The Future is Fractional (TFIF) 2026 Revealed About How Finance Teams Are Being Rebuilt what finance leaders are rethinking about talent, AI and team structure.

Stop choosing between an overloaded team and another full-time hire.

A hybrid finance team gives you capacity that grows with the business. This is the work our accounting professionals take responsibility for. We handle routine processing, the close and reporting alongside your in-house staff, so they can focus on the new, the unusual and the decisions only they can make.

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Insurance has changed fast. Some properties can’t get standard A-rated coverage, and replacement costs may have outrun policy limits. Portfolios can share coverage. A shared primary layer with excess layers on top can cost less than insuring every property to full value. Bring in specialists early, keep the decisions. Specialist advisors fill in the picture; the owner makes the call. Meet the Panel Ejie De Jesus (moderator): Partner, Scrubbed. Geraldine Serrano: Director, Specialty Tax Group, known as the “Cost Seg Queen,” specializing in cost segregation and tax strategy for real estate investors.  Alex Gilmete : Commercial Property and Casualty Advisor, USI Insurance Services, helping businesses manage and transfer risk.  Blake Peters : Founder and Principal, Peters Specialty Tax Services, specializing in R&D tax credits and other incentive programs. Timing and Visibility Gaps in Portfolio Finance Awareness comes too late. Blake Peters said the largest gap he sees is awareness. Incentives such as investment tax credits, R&D credits and energy efficiency deductions are buried in the tax code, and when owners do know about them, they’re often “looked at a little too late in the process.” Evaluating them at the start of a project can improve returns, help finance it and give investors clearer visibility. Risk has shifted fast.  Alex Gilmete said insurance has changed dramatically in just a few years. Supply chain issues, tariffs and, in California, wildfire risk have reshaped how carriers, lenders and investors view a property, and how much liability an owner carries. Property risk and insurance volatility Standard carriers, non-admitted carriers and the FAIR Plan Some properties can no longer be insured by standard A-rated carriers, Gilmete said. Location, fire exposure and crime all affect what carriers will take on. Coverage Route What The Panel Described   Standard A-rated carriers Increasingly selective; may decline older or un-upgraded buildings   Non-admitted carriers An option when standard carriers decline, at higher cost   California FAIR Plan A fallback in California when other options aren’t available That’s why Gilmete talks with investors while they’re still comparing properties. What a carrier thinks of a location affects rates and coinsurance terms (the clause that penalizes owners who insure for less than full value). He said many investors are looking at Nevada as an alternative to California, while Texas carries its own fire and flood challenges. Are you really fully insured? Gilmete warned that long-time investors may not realize how tariffs and supply chain costs have raised replacement values. A building insured for $10 million might now cost $14 million to $15 million to rebuild after a total loss, leaving the owner to cover the gap. Shared and layered coverage for portfolios Rising premiums reduce net operating income, and lower NOI lowers property value. For portfolios, Gilmete described a shared and layered approach. Take 10 properties worth $10 million each. The owner may not need $100 million of primary coverage, since a total loss on every property in one policy period is unlikely unless they share a fire or flood zone. Instead, a shared primary layer, perhaps $30 million, covers all 10, with excess layers stacked on top from different carriers. Each higher layer is less likely to be used, so it costs less per dollar of coverage. Insurance review checklist, drawn from the panel Does the policy limit reflect today’s replacement cost, not the original value? How old are the roof, HVAC, plumbing and electrical systems, and what fire suppression and egress are in place? Is everything disclosed to the carrier accurate? Carriers may inspect, and can cancel if it isn’t. How do the location’s fire, flood and crime exposure affect which carriers will quote? For a portfolio, would a shared and layered structure fit your risk tolerance? Cost Segregation: Accelerating Depreciation for Cash Flow What is cost segregation? Cost segregation is a tax strategy that separates a building’s components into shorter depreciation periods. Instead of depreciating the whole property over 27.5 years (residential rental) or 39 years (commercial), owners can deduct shorter-lived components faster, lowering current tax liability and increasing cash flow. The Lego analogy Serrano’s explanation: picture a house built of Legos. The IRS treats a residential rental as wearing out over 27.5 years. But not every piece lasts that long. Carpet, floor coverings, cabinets and countertops are five-year pieces. Driveways and landscaping are 15-year pieces. A cost segregation study takes the house apart and sorts the shorter-lived pieces into their own buckets. Bonus depreciation under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in July 2025, restored 100% bonus depreciation and made it permanent for qualifying property acquired after January 19, 2025. Combined with cost segregation, that lets owners deduct the full cost of those shorter-lived components in the first year. Serrano told the story of a client she called “Mr. I Hate the IRS,” who was about to mail a $100,000 check to the IRS. Cost segregation studies on his 12 Denver-area rentals eliminated the liability. His CPA hadn’t recommended it because she believed it applied only to commercial property. Results depend on the owner's situation. Rules on passive rental losses and depreciation recapture when a property is sold can change the math. She also pointed to manufacturers. A newer provision allows qualifying manufacturing buildings to be fully expensed rather than depreciated, so those owners may not need a cost segregation study at all. Before or after construction? Before, Serrano said. “The sooner we talk about the project, the better.” She cited an owner who built an Oakland office from shipping containers and welded them together because it was cheaper. Bolting them, so they could be taken apart, might have qualified far more of the building as five-year property. That may not have changed his choice, but he would have made it knowing the tax impact. He also demolished an existing structure without his CPA setting up a general asset account, and missed a tax benefit as a result. For cost segregation, she noted, what matters is when a building was bought and placed in service, not its age. Insurers look at age. Planning has to account for both. R&D Tax Credits for Real Estate and Construction Peters called the R&D credit “one of the worst named credits out there.” For tax purposes, it can cover work involving analysis, alternatives and design, not just scientists and software. In real estate, that can include: Engineers evaluating structural methods depending on contract terms HVAC and energy design to meet efficiency or LEED requirements Custom engineering to improve a building’s performance Manufacturers building capital-intensive facilities Investment in AI, built in-house or subcontracted, across industries His advice: don’t ask “do we do R&D?” Ask where the money and effort are going. What changed recently. From 2022 through 2024, research expenses had to be spread over five years or more instead of deducted right away, research expenses had to be amortized rather than deducted right away, which made the credit less attractive. Peters said the One Big Beautiful Bill Act fixed that going forward and, for some businesses, retroactively. Companies that stopped claiming the credit should reassess. Cost segregation vs. the R&D tax credit. Header Header R&D Tax Credit What it does Accelerates deductions, which lower taxable income A credit that reduces the tax owed dollar for dollar What can qualify, per the panel Shorter-lived components: flooring, cabinets, countertops, driveways, landscaping Structural engineering, HVAC and energy design, custom building systems, capital-intensive facilities When to look Before construction or acquisition decisions At the front end of a project Overlap - Custom HVAC and energy work often touch both, so owners can address them together Capital Improvements: Tax benefit and Insurability Do roof or HVAC upgrades lower insurance costs? Not directly, Gilmete said. But major carriers may refuse to quote older buildings that haven’t been upgraded. He described a Santa Clara property where the roof had to be replaced before A-rated carriers would consider it. On the tax side, Peters said custom engineering for HVAC or energy performance can qualify for the R&D credit. Keep the Decisions, Bring in the Experts The panel’s closing advice was about what to keep in-house. General CPAs may be excellent but lack this level of specialization. Serrano offers clients a second review by another CPA when their current CPA is unfamiliar with cost segregation. Bringing in specialists early to review tax incentives, cost segregation, contracts, insurance policies and risk tolerance lets the owner decide with a full picture. As Gilmete put it, the experts “fill out your dashboard, and then the owner gets to make decisions based on that dashboard.” This session is part of TFIF 2026.  To see how planning connects to talent, AI and team design, read, read Own the Core, Access the Rest: What The Future is Fractional (TFIF) 2026 Revealed About How Finance Teams Are Being Rebuilt   what finance leaders are rethinking about talent, AI and team structure.