Fractional CFO Services in Madison
Fractional CFO and controller services for Madison construction, contractors, distribution, manufacturing, and service businesses.
The Market
Madison is Wisconsin's institutional economy, with a fast-growing operating base underneath.
The Madison economy is anchored by an unusual concentration of institutional employers — the University of Wisconsin, American Family Insurance, Epic Systems, CUNA Mutual, state government — and the business ecosystem built up around them. Biotech and health-tech businesses have grown around UW's research base. Agtech operators sit at the intersection of the university and the state's agricultural economy. Insurance-adjacent tech and services businesses feed off the local financial-services base. And the manufacturing base underneath, across specialty industrial, food processing, and precision fabrication, is substantial.
The finance-function pattern reflects that institutional maturity: businesses that grew out of research or specialty industries, often deeply technical, that never built the finance function a commercial mid-market operator needs. Owners who understand their product deeply and their financial reporting shallowly.
What we see most:
- Insurance operators and insurance-adjacent tech and services businesses.
- Biotech, health-tech, and life-sciences operators growing from the UW research base.
- Agtech and specialty agriculture businesses.
- Healthcare and healthcare-services businesses across the UW Health and SSM networks.
- Manufacturers in specialty industrial, food processing, and precision fabrication.
- General contractors and specialty trade contractors building across Dane County.
Industries
Where we work most in Madison and south-central Wisconsin.
Insurance and financial services
Insurance operators, insurance-adjacent services, and specialty finance. Unit economics, regulatory reporting, and the reporting rigor that regulators, lenders, and investors underwrite against.
Biotech, health-tech, and life sciences
Biotech operators, health-tech businesses, and life-sciences services growing from the UW research base. Unit economics, cohort economics, and the reporting scaling companies need for the next funding round or acquisition.
Manufacturing and specialty industrial
Specialty industrial, food processing, and precision fabrication manufacturers. Standard cost, inventory accuracy, and gross-margin visibility. See our manufacturing pillar.
Construction and specialty trades
General contractors, commercial builders, and specialty trades working across Dane County. WIP schedule accuracy, over- and under-billings, retention, and the bonding capacity that gates larger work. See our construction practice and how cleaner WIP supports larger bonded work.
Healthcare and healthcare services
Multi-facility healthcare operators, physician groups, and healthcare-adjacent services across the UW Health and SSM networks. Payer mix, provider productivity, and cost-per-visit reporting.
Professional services and agencies
Engineering firms, IT services, consultancies, and marketing agencies serving the institutional base. Utilization, realization rate, and engagement-level profitability. More on how we serve professional services firms.
Wisconsin Coverage
Fractional CFO and Controller services for Madison-area businesses.
We staff Madison engagements with CFOs and Controllers who have run finance functions in the industries that operate here — insurance and specialty finance, life sciences, precision manufacturing, and research-adjacent technology — and pull from a vetted national bench when scope demands additional depth.
Madison is a mid-market metro with an unusually deep institutional base: a state capital, a major research university, a substantial insurance economy, and one of the country's more active biotech and agtech clusters. The businesses here tend to reflect that institutional depth — technical, specialized, and growing steadily.
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 Madison.
We serve south-central Wisconsin from our vetted national bench. Coverage area: Madison, Middleton, Fitchburg, Sun Prairie, Verona, Waunakee, Stoughton, and the broader Dane and Rock county region.
Call the team
866-324-4473Madison Taxes and Compliance
Up to 25% of Wisconsin's research credit is refundable. Research costs remain deductible in the year they're spent.
Wisconsin adopted none of the 2025 federal tax law, taxes downloaded software but not SaaS, and lets partnerships and S corporations pay its income tax at the entity level. Sales in Madison carry a 5.5% combined rate with no city tax, and employers follow the state's minimum wage and leave rules, since Wisconsin voided Madison's own minimum wage in 2005 and bars local leave ordinances.
Taxes
Research credit
5.75%, with up to 25% refundable
The credit is 5.75% of qualified Wisconsin research spending above half the prior three-year average, or 2.875% for a company with none in those years. Up to 25% is refundable, and since April 10, 2026 the rest carries forward 50 years instead of 15, unexpired older credits included. Contract research services became exempt from sales tax on July 1, 2026.
Federal conformity
The federal code as of December 31, 2022
Wisconsin adopted none of the 2025 federal tax law. It follows the research-cost rule from before the 2017 federal tax law, so domestic and foreign research costs can be deducted in the year incurred, and the federal catch-up elections don't apply. Bonus depreciation isn't allowed, but Section 179 expensing follows current federal law.
Software and SaaS
SaaS untaxed, downloaded software taxed
The Department of Revenue treats SaaS as a data-processing service, outside the sales tax, when the customer doesn't control or physically access the vendor's server. Prewritten software is taxable however it's delivered, and so are specified digital goods. Website design, hosting and professional services aren't taxed.
Sales tax
5.5% in Madison, with no city tax
The rate is the state's 5% plus Dane County's 0.5%, in place since 1991. Wisconsin imposes the tax on the retailer, so a seller owes the right amount whether or not it collected it and can bill the customer later for tax it missed.
Individual income tax
3.5% to 7.65% in 2026
These are the rates that reach owners of partnerships and S corporations unless the business elects the entity-level tax. For single filers, the 4.4% bracket runs to $51,950 and the 7.65% rate starts above $332,720; for married couples filing jointly, the figures are $69,260 and $443,630. A 2025 law widened the 4.4% bracket.
Pass-through entity tax
7.9% at the entity level, elected year by year
A partnership or S corporation can elect by the return's extended due date, with consent from owners holding more than 50%, and electing owners leave their share out of Wisconsin income. The rate is 7.9%, the corporate rate, which is higher than the 7.65% individuals pay in the top bracket. For 2024, 10.87% of S corporations and 5.20% of partnerships elected.
Employers
Minimum wage
$7.25 statewide, Madison included
Wisconsin bars local minimum wages and voided any ordinance in effect on June 16, 2005, which ended Madison's own. The tipped minimum is $2.33 an hour, and workers under 20 can earn an opportunity wage of $5.90 for their first 90 days.
Paid sick leave
No state requirement, and no local one allowed
Wisconsin employers don't have to provide paid sick, vacation or holiday time. State law bars city and county ordinances requiring leave for health, family or domestic-abuse reasons, voided those in effect on May 20, 2011, and separately bars any local employment-benefit mandate.
Family and medical leave
Unpaid, at 50 or more employees
Wisconsin's family and medical leave law gives, each calendar year, six weeks for a birth or adoption, two weeks to care for a family member with a serious health condition and two weeks for the employee's own. The state has no paid family leave or disability program, and the governor's 2025 paid leave proposal was removed from the budget.
Unemployment insurance
3.05% or 3.25% for a new employer in 2026
The rate depends on payroll, with 3.25% at $500K or more, and new construction employers pay less. The taxable wage base is $14,000 per employee, new-employer rates last three years, and the state stays on Schedule D, its lowest rate schedule, through 2027.
Hiring
No pay-range posting law; salary history questions allowed
Employers may ask applicants about salary history, and cities and counties can't ban the question; local bans in effect on April 18, 2018 were voided. The governor's 2025 proposal to require pay ranges in job postings was removed from the budget.
Questions Madison owners ask
Can the owners of an S corporation or partnership use Wisconsin's research credit?
Yes. The business computes the credit and its owners claim it. Qualified research expenses follow the federal definition in Section 41 as of December 31, 2021, and the credit itself counts as income. More on how we work with SaaS and technology companies.
Can we hold a departing engineer to a non-compete?
Only if every restraint in it is reasonably necessary to protect the business. Under Wisconsin's statute, a covenant with one unreasonable restraint is void in full, reasonable parts included, and courts don't narrow it to make it enforceable. The statute sets no salary threshold and no notice requirement.
Does my spouse have to sign the guaranty on our company's loan?
No Wisconsin statute requires it. Wisconsin is a marital property state, and an obligation one spouse takes on during the marriage is presumed to be in the interest of the marriage or family, so it can be satisfied from all marital property as well as the signer's other property. A written statement of that purpose, signed by the obligated spouse at or before signing, is conclusive.
What state certification does a home builder need in Wisconsin?
Dwelling Contractor certification, which is required to pull a building permit for a one- or two-family home; owner-occupants are exempt. The builder needs a Dwelling Contractor Qualifier with 12 hours of continuing education every two years, plus proof of financial responsibility. Full certification takes a bond of $25,000 or more or $250,000 per occurrence of liability insurance; a smaller bond, down to the $5,000 statutory floor, earns a restricted certification. Wisconsin has no state license for commercial general contractors.
How much retainage can an owner hold on a Wisconsin construction job?
On private work, no statute caps it. On municipal contracts of $1,000 or more, except Department of Transportation work, retainage is limited to 5% until the job is 50% complete; after that, payments are made in full unless the architect or engineer certifies unsatisfactory progress, and total retainage can't exceed 10%. Retainage on those contracts may be released at substantial completion. More on our fractional controller work for contractors.
Does a contractor charge sales tax on a remodeling job in Madison?
Not on work that improves real property. The contractor is treated as the consumer of the materials it installs and pays the tax on them at purchase, and labor on real property isn't a taxable service, though repair of tangible personal property is. Materials bought in a county with no county tax and used on a Dane County job owe the county's 0.5% use tax.
Is there a Wisconsin tax credit for manufacturers?
Yes. Under the manufacturing and agriculture credit, a company takes 7.5% of the qualified production income from its Wisconsin manufacturing or agricultural property, with no dollar cap. It can't exceed the tax on that income, unused credit carries forward 15 years, and partnerships and S corporations pass it to their owners. Business personal property has also been exempt from property tax since the 2024 assessment.
When is our Wisconsin annual report due?
A Wisconsin corporation or LLC files by the end of the calendar quarter of its formation anniversary, every year after the year it formed, for $25 online or $40 on paper. A corporation or LLC formed in another state files by March 31, for $65 online or $80 on paper. A missed report leads to delinquency and then administrative dissolution, and a foreign registration can be revoked four months after a missed March 31.
Figures verified October 2026 against the Wisconsin Statutes, the Wisconsin Departments of Revenue, Workforce Development, Safety and Professional Services and Financial Institutions, and the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. This is general information, not tax or legal advice.
Madison Finance Talent
Madison's 2,320 financial managers earn $148,970 at the median, about 11% under the nation.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data put 2,320 financial managers in the Madison metro, the category that covers controllers and finance directors. Median pay is $148,970, 10.6% under the $166,570 national median, and the top tenth earns $253,800 or more.
The metro has 1,121 business locations with 50 to 499 employees, and any of them hiring a finance leader looks in that same pool of 2,320. A research or software company preparing for a funding round or an acquisition can get CFO judgment without first winning that hire.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Madison, WI 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