Track3D: How Two Sets of Books Became One CFO Office Ready for Series A

02How SRF built one finance office across two countries

Why start with a controller?

The first step was a controller: the person who owns the accuracy of the books and closes them every month. The controller's job was to revive the accounts of both the US and Indian entities and clean them up. Reporting is only as good as the books under it, so this came first.

How did two sets of books become one?

SRF then brought the US and Indian books together into one consolidated view, a single set of numbers for the whole company with both entities inside it. During the first phase of the work, SRF took over the accounting for both countries from the CPA service and the local firm, step by step. By the end, one team ran all of it.

What does a full CFO office do each month?

With clean books in place, SRF started a monthly funnel review. It set the business metrics that mattered, tracked them, and built investor reporting that went out on a regular cycle. SRF also led the investor conversation itself, on Track3D's behalf, so investor questions now had a finance office to go to.

What did budgets by function change?

SRF introduced a budget for each function of the business, with cost controls around them. Leadership got a structured way to plan spending across the company and to manage it once the money was going out.

How did the work carry into a raise and Series A preparation?

SRF supported Track3D through a capital raise that succeeded, including the investor reporting and the stream of questions that come with any round. The reporting carried on after the raise closed.

SRF then led a dedicated effort to prepare the company for its Series A, the larger round that usually follows seed funding. Over several years, work that began as help with one fundraise had become a fractional CFO office, meaning a senior finance team shared part time.

04What should a startup with books in two countries fix first?

Finance is often the last function a venture-backed startup builds, and the first one investors examine.

A company working across the US and India feels the gap twice, because each country adds its own books, its own advisers and its own rules.

• Put both countries in one set of numbers. Two competent accounting firms still give you two partial pictures. Investors are backing one company, so consolidation comes before any dashboard.
• Clean the books before you report from them. A controller's first months often go on fixing the past, and that has to finish before the first investor report.
• Pick a monthly rhythm and keep it. A funnel review held every month gives investors a series they can compare. A deck prepared once for a round gives them a single snapshot.
• Give investor questions an owner. When questions land on founders, they compete with sales and product for attention. A finance office that owns them answers on a cycle.
• Price the work between your entities. When an Indian team works for a US parent, the Indian entity must bill that work at an arm's-length price and document how it set it. That is the price an unrelated customer would pay. Our guide to US-India transfer pricing explains the method.

This is the work of our fractional CFO and controllership teams. FP&A handles budgets, and our MIS practice builds the monthly reporting. Companies with entities in both countries can start at our US-India desk.