How a Fractional CFO Helped a CPG Brand Close Its Cash Gap

Kimberly Green | 2026-03-30

How a Fractional CFO Helped a CPG Brand Navigate the Gap Between Inventory and Cash A profitable business can still run out of cash. Here's how Everledger uncovered—and fixed—the problem. The Problem: Profitable on Paper, Broke in Reality The numbers looked good. Month after month, Everledger's CPG brand was hitting revenue targets and moving product through major retailers like Costco. But something was wrong. The founder kept looking at the bank account and seeing a problem that shouldn't exist. Growing revenue, but shrinking cash. The bookkeeper said the business was profitable. The CFO said margins were healthy. Yet every morning brought the same anxiety: would there be enough cash to pay suppliers, cover payroll, and fund the next inventory order? This is the CPG cash trap. It's not broken math. It's broken timing. Why CPG Brands Bleed Cash While Growing The CPG cash flow problem starts overseas. You manufacture product with an 8-12 week lead time. It ships in containers. It arrives at a 3PL warehouse. The retailer issues a purchase order. Your product ships out. Then—you wait. Net terms are 60-90 days. Major retailers often push it further. Your cash moves out first. It sits in ocean freight. It sits in the warehouse. It sits on retail shelves. Only after the retailer sells enough and processes payment do you see the money come back. In that gap, you need capital. Not because you're failing. Because you're growing and your cash is trapped. As Ashley Aviram, the fractional CFO who worked with Everledger, put it: "There's this huge void of cash. Technically you've made a sale and in your books it will say you've made money, but you haven't received the physical cash." The Visibility Problem That Looked Like a Math Problem Everledger's founder didn't have a cash flow problem—he had a visibility problem. He could see his P&L. He could see his balance sheet. What he couldn't see was the next 13 weeks. Aviram built a 13-week cash flow projection. Week by week, it mapped out when inventory would ship, when it would land at retailers, when cash would actually arrive. No assumptions, no averages. Just the specific reality of Everledger's CPG business. The projection exposed the gap. It was real. It was large. It was coming. But it was visible. And visible problems can be fixed. Bridge Financing Beats Emergency Lending With the cash flow projection in hand, Aviram helped Everledger arrange bridge financing before the cash crunch hit. No panic. No 18% emergency lending. No desperate founder mode. Just capital that arrived when it was needed and got paid back...