Fractional CFO Services in Jacksonville
Fractional CFO and controller services for Jacksonville construction, contractors, distribution, manufacturing, and service businesses.
The Market
Jacksonville is the operational back office for a lot of the Southeast.
The Jacksonville economy is anchored by three overlapping bases: logistics and distribution through the Port of Jacksonville, CSX, and deep freight infrastructure; financial services and insurance through Fidelity National, large operations centers, Florida Blue, and a growing fintech base; and healthcare through Baptist Health, Mayo Jacksonville, and UF Health. Manufacturing rounds out the picture, from consumer packaging to specialty industrial along the I-95 corridor.
The finance-function issues we see cross industry: businesses that grew through the 2010s and 2020s on the strength of the regional economy without ever building the infrastructure a mid-market business needs. Reporting built for tax compliance rather than management. Banking relationships that never got renegotiated as the business scaled. Cost accounting that would tell an owner things they haven't been able to see on their own.
What we see most:
- Logistics, distribution, and freight forwarding operators serving the port and I-95 corridor.
- Financial services, insurance, and fintech businesses scaling with the region's financial-services base.
- Manufacturers and consumer packaging operators serving national supply chains.
- Healthcare and healthcare-services businesses with multi-facility footprints across northeast Florida.
- General contractors and specialty trades building through northeast Florida's growth cycle.
- Family-owned businesses across construction, distribution, and specialty consumer preparing for the next stage.
Industries
Where we work most in Jacksonville and northeast Florida.
Logistics and distribution
Freight forwarders, warehousing operators, 3PLs, and distribution operators serving the Port of Jacksonville and the I-95 corridor. Customer contribution margin, freight-in accuracy, and terms discipline. See our distribution cluster.
Financial services and insurance
Financial services back offices, insurance operators, specialty finance, and the growing fintech base. Unit economics, regulatory reporting, and the reporting rigor that lenders and investors underwrite against.
Healthcare and healthcare services
Multi-facility healthcare operators, physician groups, and healthcare-adjacent services. Payer mix, provider productivity, and the specific reporting the payer side requires.
Manufacturing and consumer packaging
Industrial manufacturers, packaging operators, and specialty consumer producers serving national brands. Standard cost, inventory accuracy, and margin discipline. See our manufacturing pillar.
Construction and specialty trades
General contractors and specialty trades building across northeast Florida. WIP schedule accuracy, over- and under-billings, retention, and the bonding capacity that gates how much work you can carry. See our construction practice and how cleaner WIP supports larger bonded work.
Professional services and agencies
Engineering firms, IT services, consultancies, and marketing agencies serving the regional base. Utilization, realization rate, and engagement-level profitability. More on how we serve professional services firms.
Florida Coverage
Fractional CFO and Controller services for Jacksonville-area businesses.
We staff Jacksonville engagements with CFOs and Controllers who have run finance functions in the industries that operate here — port logistics, specialty finance and insurance, healthcare, and industrial manufacturing — and pull from a vetted national bench when scope demands additional depth.
Jacksonville is the largest city by area in the contiguous US, and the underlying economy reflects it — a wide base of companies serving national supply chains, financial services back offices, and the growing insurance and healthcare sectors that have made the metro a quiet mid-market powerhouse.
How can we help?
What’s going on in your business and where would you like help?
An Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Company for two consecutive years.
Coverage
We cover Jacksonville.
We serve northeast Florida from our vetted national bench. Coverage area: Jacksonville, Ponte Vedra, St. Augustine, Fernandina Beach, Orange Park, Amelia Island, and the broader Duval, St. Johns, Clay, and Nassau County region.
Call the team
866-324-4473Jacksonville Taxes and Compliance
Florida's constitution bars a personal income tax. C corporations pay 5.5% above their first $50,000.
For a Jacksonville company, the rest of the bill runs through Duval County's sales tax, a combined city and county business tax receipt, Florida's own depreciation rules, and employer and construction rules that apply statewide.
Taxes
Sales tax
7.5% in Duval County
Three 0.5% surtaxes sit on top of the state's 6%: one with no end date, one through December 31, 2030, and a school surtax through December 31, 2035. On a truck, a forklift or any other single item, the surtax applies only to the first $5,000 of the price.
Business tax receipt
One receipt with a county part and a city part
Jacksonville puts the countywide business tax and the city's own on a single receipt; the beach cities and Baldwin levy their own in place of the city part. An attorney or consultant pays $30 to the county and $100 to the city, $130 in all, and home-based and one-person businesses need one too. Florida cities and counties levy no income, payroll or gross-receipts tax.
Commercial rent
No sales tax on a warehouse lease
A distributor's warehouse or office lease carries no sales tax for rental periods starting on or after October 1, 2025. Truck parking and vehicle storage are a separate category, and Florida still taxes both.
Depreciation
No 100% bonus or higher §179 limit in Florida
Florida did not adopt the 2025 federal law's bonus depreciation or its $2.5 million §179 limit. A C corporation buying trucks, racking or packaging lines adds the bonus back and recovers it over seven years, so in the year of purchase its Florida income runs ahead of its federal income.
Pass-through owners
No PTE election and no franchise tax
With no personal income tax, Florida has no pass-through entity tax to elect. Partnerships and LLCs taxed as partnerships owe no franchise, net-worth or gross-receipts tax, and their recurring state charge is the annual report.
Employers
Minimum wage
$15.00, up from $14.00
The increase took effect September 30, 2026, and tipped employees now receive at least $11.98 in direct wages. The rate is fixed through 2027, inflation indexing starts January 1, 2028, and Jacksonville cannot set a higher local minimum.
E-Verify
Mandatory from the 25th employee
From that point a private employer verifies every new hire within three business days. Public agencies, their contractors and their subcontractors use it at any size, and three failures in 24 months bring fines of $1,000 a day.
Reemployment tax
Quarterly returns to the Department of Revenue
The Department of Revenue collects reemployment tax, and each quarter's return is due the last day of the following month. A new employer pays 2.7% on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages until its own claims history sets a rate.
Not required in Florida
No state paid-leave program or payroll deduction
Florida runs no paid family leave or disability program and takes no payroll contribution for one; insurers may sell voluntary paid family leave policies. There is also no state retirement-plan mandate and no pay-range posting law.
Non-competes
Five years presumed reasonable for trade secrets
Under Florida's general statute, a restriction protecting trade secrets is presumed reasonable at five years or less and unreasonable beyond ten; for other employees the marks are six months and two years. Employees paid more than twice the annual mean wage of the employer's county can instead be bound by a CHOICE Act agreement of up to four years.
Construction
Mechanics' liens
One year to enforce a recorded lien
A claim of lien is recorded within 90 days of final furnishing and served on the owner within 15 days. The lienor then has one year from recording to enforce it, or 60 days after a notice of contest. Lienors with no contract with the owner first serve a notice to owner within 45 days of first furnishing.
Contractor sales tax
A 2026 refund for university and college work
Under a lump-sum contract, the contractor owes sales tax and surtax when it buys materials and bills the customer without tax. Since July 1, 2026, materials built into state university and college public works qualify for a refund-based exemption.
Private payments
Late private payments earn 19.87%
Private contracts set the due date, and a defective payment request must be returned within 14 days with the reasons. Late amounts accrue the judgment rate plus 12%, 19.87% for the fourth quarter of 2026, and that interest cannot be waived in advance.
Questions Jacksonville owners ask
How fast do Florida local governments pay contractors on public work?
A local government pays within 20 business days of receiving the payment request, or 25 if an agent must approve it first. The general contractor then pays its subcontractors within 10 days, and they pay their own within seven. Late public payments bear 2% a month, and retainage on contracts over $200,000 is capped at 5% of each progress payment. More on fractional controllers for construction.
What changed in Florida's unclaimed property rules in 2026?
Since June 26, 2026, holders must notify owners of items of $50 or more 90 to 180 days before filing, up from 60 to 120, and send a certified-mail notice at least 60 days before filing for items over $1,000. For a report filed April 30, 2027, that window runs from November 1, 2026 to January 30, 2027. Wages go dormant after one year against a general dormancy period of five, and a late report costs $10 a day, up to $500.
Is software-as-a-service taxable in Florida?
The Department of Revenue's position, stated in a technical assistance advisement, is that it is not taxable when nothing tangible is delivered. That advisement binds only the company that requested it but states the Department's position, and software delivered on physical media is still taxable. Telecom and cable services fall under Florida's separate communications services tax.
Which county's surtax applies when a Jacksonville distributor delivers outside Duval?
The rate of the county where the goods are delivered applies. A shipment from a Duval warehouse to an Orange County customer carries Orange's 6.5% combined rate, and one delivered in Hillsborough carries 7.5%. The surtax applies only to the first $5,000 of a single item, and no county can change its rate except on January 1.
Does a buyer pick up the seller's unpaid reemployment tax in Florida?
Yes, along with unpaid sales tax, when the buyer acquires more than 50% of the business, its assets or its stock of goods. Corporate income tax is excluded, and the liability is capped at the greater of the purchase price or fair market value, net of liens. A Department of Revenue certificate of compliance, with no insiders in common, releases the buyer. See how we work with newly acquired businesses.
Does an S corporation pay any Florida income tax?
It does only when it owes federal tax at the entity level, on built-in gains or passive income; Florida's corporate tax then reaches that income. Otherwise its profit passes to shareholders with no Florida tax, and its recurring state charge is the $150 annual report, due between January 1 and May 1.
What does Florida charge on the notes and mortgages in an acquisition?
Promissory notes signed or delivered in Florida pay documentary stamp tax of 35¢ per $100, capped at $2,450 when unsecured, which reaches seller notes as well as bank debt. A mortgage recorded in Florida pays the same rate with no cap, plus a one-time 0.2% intangible tax when Florida real estate secures the loan. A deed transferring Florida real estate pays 70¢ per $100.
Figures verified October 2026 against the Florida Constitution and Statutes, the Florida Department of Revenue, FloridaCommerce, the Florida Department of State, the Florida Chief Financial Officer, the Duval County Tax Collector and the City of Jacksonville. This is general information, not tax or legal advice.
Jacksonville Finance Talent
Jacksonville's metro reached 1.79 million people in 2025. Its financial managers earn a median $138,780.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 4,570 financial managers in the Jacksonville metro, the category that covers controllers and finance directors. Their median pay is $138,780, against $166,570 nationally, and the top tenth earns $275,680 or more.
The metro added 26,153 residents in 2025, the 15th-largest gain of any U.S. metro area, and has 2,128 business locations with 50 to 499 employees. A company that needs CFO judgment does not have to win a full-time hire from a pool of 4,570 to get it.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Jacksonville MSA. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 and Vintage 2025 population estimates.
How we engage.
When It's Broken
Put out the fire.
Interim CFO & Controller. At the loss of a key employee. When things crash or break. We deploy interim professionals — repairing what's broken and keeping the system running while you decide what's next.
When You're Building & Exiting
Advise and serve.
CFO, Controller & Accounting Team. Right-sized financial leadership — and the team to execute. Embedded for the long run. The CFO Power Team: right roles, right cost.
When You Don't Know What You Don't Know
Assessment services.
Financial Discovery Assessment. A structured deep-dive that reveals where your finance function stands today — and what it needs to support where you're going.
Transaction Readiness Assessment. Will the books and reporting tell the right story to a buyer or investor — and do the systems and processes support merger or acquisition activities?
Our Proprietary Diagnostic
The Financial Discovery Assessment shows you what’s working, what’s missing, and the plan to get where the business needs to go.
Every Assessment applies the same structured examination — accounting systems and technology, processes and procedures, team members and team structure, and team-member will-skill — refined across hundreds of engagements in businesses that look like yours.
The output is the Financial Heat Map System: dollarized findings, hidden inefficiencies, and a sequenced plan. It’s presented at the Executive Action Meeting, where your stakeholders review findings and recommendations in non-clinical, non-technical language they can act on.
We’ve walked into hundreds of businesses at the stage yours is in now. We know where to look. We know how to fix what we find.
Prefer to call? 866-324-4473