J4 Advisory
Fractional & interim CFO  ·  On site or remote

The person an owner trusts when the ground moves.

I'm Chris Jones. Twenty-five years running finance, HR, IT and administration for owner-led companies — through a partner buyout, two acquisitions, and the ERP replacements, pension terminations and cleanups in between. J4 Advisory brings that to companies that need it part of the time.

25 years in finance & operations 20 years in executive leadership 4 ERP implementations & upgrades 2 sell-side transactions, start to close 1 partner buyout, valuation through close
Services

Engaged at the level you actually need

Some owners need a CFO one day a month. Some need a controller every week. Some need someone to untangle two years of books before anything else can happen. I take the work at whichever of those levels fits.

Fractional CFO

Ongoing, part-time ownership of the finance function — forecasting, cash, banking relationships, board and lender reporting, and the strategic questions that sit behind them.

Interim CFO or controller

Full coverage while you search, after a departure, or through a transition. I've been on both sides of an acquisition and know what the first ninety days demand.

Controller & close

A close calendar that actually closes. Reconciliations, accruals, inventory and work-in-process, and monthly statements that management can make decisions from.

Cleanup & catch-up

Books that drifted. Chart of accounts consolidation, subledger-to-general-ledger reconciliation, restating prior periods, and getting audit- or diligence-ready.

ERP selection & implementation

Four implementations and major upgrades — Microsoft NAV, Deltek Vision, Unit4 and Infor SyteLine. Selection, data and cost-model design, user acceptance testing, and cutover.

Sale readiness & diligence support

Quality of earnings preparation, working capital targets, add-back normalization, and the data room. The work that decides whether your number survives the buyer's review.

Strategic advisory

Margin and product-line analysis, incentive plan design, benefits and retirement plan strategy, cross-border and maquiladora operations, and tariff exposure.

Where I help

If one of these is your sentence, we should talk

My clients are owner-led companies, generally under fifty employees — manufacturers and professional services firms. Often the owner is a technical expert in their field who never set out to run the business side of it. I work on site where that matters and remotely where it doesn't, which means location is rarely the deciding factor.

“We're profitable on paper but I never know what's in the bank next month.”

Weekly cash reporting, a rolling forecast, and target operating balances built from your actual outflow pattern — not a rule of thumb.

“Some jobs make money and some don't, and I can't tell you which until it's over.”

Margin analysis at the job and line-item level, and a look at whether your costing methodology is telling you the truth.

“Someone approached us about buying the company.”

Getting your financials to withstand a quality of earnings review before a buyer finds what you didn't. I've been through it from the seller's chair.

“Our bookkeeper left and I'm not sure what state we're in.”

Cleanup, reconstruction of the prior periods, and a documented close process so the next departure isn't a crisis.

“Our system is twenty years old and everyone's afraid to touch it.”

ERP selection or upgrade, run as a project with test scripts and a cutover plan rather than a leap of faith.

“I'm spending my time on the business instead of in it.”

Taking the finance, HR and systems load off your desk so you can go back to the work you're actually good at.

Track record

Selected work

A sample of problems I've owned end to end, across manufacturing and professional services.

M&AManufacturing

Sold a specialty manufacturer to a public buyer

Company-side lead on a strategic sale from marketing through close. Corrected the confidential information presentation before distribution, ran the quality of earnings databook review — surfacing formula errors, entity-level profitability distortions and an inflated working capital target — and built the sell-side projection model. My second sell-side transaction; I was the owner's primary diligence contact through an earlier acquisition.

OwnershipProf. services

Valued a firm through a partnership dissolution

Worked with both partners as they dissolved the partnership and converted the firm to a single-member LLC — performing the valuation used in the final buyout negotiation and handling every financial transaction under the separation and redemption agreement.

SavingsManufacturing

Found $380,000 a year that was leaking out of the back office

A first-year cost reduction program built from fourteen separate initiatives and presented to the board: moving accounts payable off paper checks onto ACH, capturing early-payment discounts, restructuring owner distributions to cut wire fees, renegotiating card processing, eliminating late fees through auto-pay, and recovering overpaid state tax. None of it glamorous. All of it recurring.

SystemsProf. services

Replaced QuickBooks and cut the billing cycle in half

Implemented a cloud ERP at a professional services firm, replacing QuickBooks and a proprietary time entry system and cutting billing and receivables cycle time by 50%. Separately outsourced the IT function for 50% savings and took the firm fully paperless.

ComplianceProf. services

Fixed a retirement plan failure dating back to 1999

Discovered 401(k) eligibility failures affecting every employee since the company's founding and worked with the IRS under the Voluntary Correction Program for two years to make everyone whole — avoiding over $50,000 in penalties and preserving the plan's qualification.

BenefitsManufacturing

Kept $873K of pension surplus inside the company

Terminated a frozen defined benefit plan covering a union bargaining unit — PBGC clearance, a five-carrier annuity bid and the lump sum election window — then structured a qualified replacement plan so the surplus funded employee retirement accounts instead of going to excise tax.

PeopleBoth lanes

Built the compensation and benefits programs behind two workforces

Incentive plan design — including a quarterly bonus funded on adjusted operating income using a trailing floor methodology — alongside health and retirement plan strategy, annual renewals, and employee wellness and welfare programs. At one firm that work contributed to several Best Places to Work in Pittsburgh awards and average tenure above eight years.

About

Chris Jones

I don't delegate from a distance. I'm hands-on, and I prefer to work alongside people rather than hand them a deliverable.

What I've enjoyed most across my career is being in roles where I wear a lot of hats. At The Rhodes Group I owned finance, HR, IT and administration, which gave me a full picture of how a business actually worked and how every decision landed on the team. Most recently, as CFO of Overly Door Company, I was a partner to ownership rather than just a scorekeeper — including guiding the company through a sale.

Along the way I've described myself as knowing a little bit about a lot of things. In a small company that turns out to be the point: the finance problem is usually also a systems problem, or an HR problem, or a vendor problem, and someone has to be willing to follow it across all three.

What motivates me is finding better ways to do more with less — not efficiency for its own sake, but so the business runs smarter and people get freed up for higher-value work.

I live in Greensburg with my wife and our four daughters. I coach girls basketball, still play “old man” baseball, and my wife and I owned and ran a food truck franchise until we sold it — which is a fast education in what it actually feels like to be the owner writing the checks.

How it works

Starting an engagement

No long discovery process before anyone knows whether this is a fit.

01

A conversation

Thirty minutes on what's going on. If what you need isn't something I do well, I'll say so and point you somewhere better.

02

A look at the actual numbers

Recent statements, your close process, and whatever system you're running on. I come back with what I'm seeing and what I'd do first.

03

A scoped proposal

Fixed monthly fee for ongoing work, or a defined scope and fee for a project. You'll know what you're paying before we start.

04

The work

On site when it matters, remote when it doesn't. Month-end close gets real availability, not a queued response.

Tell me what's keeping you up at night.

The first conversation costs nothing and usually clarifies things either way. Thirty minutes, no preparation needed.

Intro call
Email chris@j4advisorygroup.com
Phone 724.787.6136
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/caj24
Working On site or remote