Fractional CFO Services in Tampa Bay
Fractional CFO and controller services for Tampa Bay construction, contractors, distribution, manufacturing, and service businesses.
Tampa Bay / Sarasota Coverage
Serving Tampa Bay's family-owned mid-market.
Vessel Advisors supports businesses across the Tampa Bay metro — manufacturers, distributors, construction contractors, healthcare services groups, financial and professional services firms, and the family-owned mid-market businesses driving Tampa Bay's sustained growth.
Tampa Bay has emerged as one of the strongest domestic mid-market metros in the country — less international than South Florida, more diversified than Orlando, with a deep base of family-owned businesses across services, distribution, and construction.
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.
The Market
Tampa Bay is one of the deepest family-business mid-markets in the Southeast.
Tampa Bay benefits from a combination most metros don't have: a strong financial-services anchor (Raymond James, the regional banks), a major healthcare base, a growing technology economy, and a deep multi-generational family-business community across distribution, construction, and services. The metro has scaled faster than its mid-market firms' finance functions have, which creates the recurring opportunity for fractional CFO and Controller work.
What we see most:
- Multi-generational family-owned distribution, services, and contracting businesses growing past their original finance setups.
- Manufacturers serving the Florida and Southeast US industrial economy.
- Healthcare services operators consolidating across Tampa Bay and Florida.
- Construction contractors and trades businesses across commercial and residential markets.
- Professional and financial services firms scaling regionally from Tampa Bay headquarters.
Industries
Where we work most in Tampa Bay.
Manufacturing and distribution
Manufacturers, regional distributors, and food and beverage producers serving the Florida and Southeast US industrial base. Gross margin visibility, inventory accuracy, and standard cost discipline are the recurring gaps.
Construction and trades
Commercial contractors, residential builders, and the trades businesses behind Tampa Bay's sustained growth. WIP accounting, job-level profitability, retention tracking, and bonding capacity are baseline conversations.
Healthcare services
Multi-site healthcare operators, specialty groups, and the services platforms backing Florida's growing population. Reimbursement complexity, multi-entity consolidation, and PE-readiness work all come up.
Professional and financial services
Engineering, IT services, consulting, financial advisory, and other services firms scaling beyond founder bandwidth. Partner economics, utilization tracking, and capital structure work for the growth.
Tampa Bay Taxes and Compliance
Hillsborough extended its surtax to 2041. Sales in Tampa still carry 7.5%.
Tampa Bay's five counties share one state tax code but set their own surtaxes and business tax receipts. The cards cover both, along with Florida's rules on equipment, research costs, employers and construction.
Taxes
Sales tax
7.5% in Hillsborough, 7.0% in the other four
Hillsborough's 0.5% Community Investment Tax now runs through December 31, 2041; earlier state rate tables showed it ending November 30, 2026. Its indigent health care surtax has no end date, and its school surtax runs through 2028. Pinellas, Pasco, Sarasota and Manatee each charge 7.0%.
Income tax
Owners pay none; C corporations pay 5.5%
Florida has no personal income tax, so a family-owned S corporation or partnership has no pass-through entity election to make. A C corporation pays 5.5% above its first $50,000 of Florida income and makes estimated payments once its tax is expected to exceed $2,500.
Research costs
Domestic research amortized over five years
Florida did not adopt the 2025 federal law's immediate expensing of research costs. A C corporation capitalizes domestic research and amortizes it over five years for Florida, and foreign research over 15, while deducting domestic research immediately on its federal return.
Equipment
$25,000 exempt per site, return due April 1
Counties tax business equipment and furniture above a $25,000 exemption on each return, with one return per site. Form DR-405 goes to the county property appraiser by April 1, with a 30-day extension on timely request. Filing late costs 5% a month up to 25%.
Commercial rent
Plant and warehouse leases are no longer taxed
A manufacturer's lease on its plant or warehouse carries no sales tax for any rental period that began on or after October 1, 2025. Late payments of rent for earlier periods are still taxed at 2% plus surtax.
Services
Most professional services are untaxed
Florida's list of taxable services is short: security and detective work, nonresidential cleaning and nonresidential pest control are the named ones. The Department of Revenue treats remotely accessed software with nothing tangible delivered as untaxed.
Employers
Minimum wage
$15.00 now, no increase until 2028
The rate rose from $14.00 to $15.00 on September 30, 2026, and tipped employees receive at least $11.98 in direct wages. There is no increase in September 2027; the next rate, indexed to inflation, takes effect January 1, 2028.
E-Verify
Any size on public work, 25 employees otherwise
Once a private employer reaches 25 employees, each new hire goes through E-Verify within three business days. Contractors and subcontractors working for public agencies must use it at any size.
Reemployment tax
No separate rate for construction
Florida's reemployment tax applies to the first $7,000 of each employee's wages, and contractors pay on the same schedule as every other employer. New employers pay 2.7% for about two and a half to three years, and earned rates run from 0.1% to 5.4%.
Garden leave
Garden leave of up to four years
For employees paid more than twice the annual mean wage of the employer's county, the CHOICE Act allows garden leave of up to four years at full salary and benefits, with no duty to work after 90 days. Each day of nonworking garden leave shortens any non-compete by a day.
Local mandates
No local wage, sick-leave or scheduling rules
Tampa, St. Petersburg and the surrounding counties cannot set a minimum wage, require sick leave or adopt predictive-scheduling rules for private employers. Florida also has no paid family leave program, no state retirement-plan mandate and no pay-range posting law.
Construction
Retainage
No private cap, 5% on public jobs over $200,000
Private contracts set their own retainage. On state and local-government contracts over $200,000, retainage is capped at 5% of each progress payment. On private work, a subcontractor can substitute Treasuries, Florida bonds or insured CDs for cash retainage.
Mechanics' liens
A claim of lien within 90 days of final work
The claim of lien is recorded within 90 days after final furnishing and served on the owner within 15 days of recording. Subcontractors and suppliers with no contract with the owner also need a notice to owner served within 45 days of first furnishing.
Contractor sales tax
Materials are taxed at purchase, not on the bill
Florida treats a lump-sum contractor as the end user of its materials, so the tax is paid to suppliers at purchase and never appears on the customer's bill. A contractor that makes and uses its own asphalt pays $1.19 a ton through June 30, 2027.
Questions Tampa Bay owners ask
Can a Tampa Bay manufacturer claim Florida's research credit?
It can if it is a C corporation in a target industry such as manufacturing, life sciences or information technology, holds a certification letter from the Department of Commerce and also claims the federal research credit. The credit is 10% of Florida research spending above a four-year average base, limited to 50% of the remaining corporate tax, with a five-year carryforward. It cannot be refunded or sold. Applications are accepted March 20–26 for the prior calendar year, under a statewide cap of $9 million a year that is prorated.
Does a Tampa business need a county receipt as well as a city one?
Yes. Hillsborough County requires its receipt inside Tampa, Temple Terrace and Plant City, at $30 per practitioner for professions, on top of a city receipt that runs $289.40 for an attorney and $231.52 for a CPA. Pinellas County has levied no business tax since 1995, so a St. Petersburg professional office pays only the city: $65 for up to 30 employees and $12 for each one beyond. Sarasota County repealed its business tax on July 9, 2024, apart from a $25 attorney tax, and unincorporated Manatee County levies none.
Can a general contractor wait to pay subcontractors until the owner pays?
On private work, yes: below the owner, a party owes payment downstream only after it has been paid for that work. Once paid, it must pass along undisputed amounts under the contract. If they remain unpaid 30 days after the later of the due date or receipt of payment, the subcontractor can sue for an accounting, an injunction and prejudgment attachment, and a knowing failure to pay is misapplication of construction funds, a crime.
When does an owner have to release retainage on a private Tampa Bay job?
The owner pays the balance, retainage included, within 14 days after substantial completion, a certificate of occupancy or owner or tenant possession, once the punch list is complete; the default punch-list window is 15 days. Late retainage accrues the same interest as any late private payment, the judgment rate plus 12%, which is 19.87% for the fourth quarter of 2026. More on fractional controllers for construction.
What should a buyer of a Tampa Bay company get from the seller before closing?
The document that releases the buyer is a receipt or certificate of compliance from the Department of Revenue. Without one, a buyer of more than 50% of the business, its assets or its stock of goods is liable for the seller's unpaid sales and reemployment taxes, up to the greater of the price or fair market value, net of liens. The certificate works only if the two sides share no insiders, and a Department audit that finds nothing owed also releases the buyer. See how we work with newly acquired businesses.
Can a Tampa Bay firm enforce a non-compete against an employee below the CHOICE Act threshold?
Yes, under Florida's general statute, if the agreement is a signed writing that protects a legitimate business interest. Six months or less is presumed reasonable and more than two years unreasonable, and a court must modify an overbroad restriction and may not consider the employee's hardship. A breach is presumed to cause irreparable injury, and the employer posts a bond to get an injunction.
Does Florida follow the federal write-offs for 2025 equipment purchases?
No. Florida did not adopt the 2025 federal law's 100% bonus depreciation or its $2.5 million §179 limit. A C corporation adds back bonus claimed on assets placed in service before January 1, 2027 and recovers it one-seventh a year over seven years. Returns already filed may need an amended return, Form F-1120X.
Figures verified October 2026 against the Florida Constitution and Statutes, the Florida Department of Revenue, FloridaCommerce, the Florida Chief Financial Officer, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota and Manatee counties, and the cities of Tampa and St. Petersburg. This is general information, not tax or legal advice.
Tampa Bay Finance Talent
Tampa Bay's financial managers earn $157,480 at the median, 5.5% under the national figure.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 8,500 financial managers in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro, the category that covers controllers and finance directors. Median pay is $157,480, about 5% below the national median of $166,570, and the top tenth earns $294,510 or more.
The metro has 4,175 business locations with 50 to 499 employees, and its 3.42 million residents make it the 17th-largest metro area in the country. A company that needs CFO judgment does not have to add a full-time executive salary to get it.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater 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?
Coverage
We cover Tampa Bay.
We support Tampa Bay companies through our team and bench — on-site time when it matters, virtual delivery when it doesn't.
Coverage area: Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Sarasota, Bradenton, Lakeland, and the broader Tampa Bay metro.
Call the team
866-324-4473Our 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