Hiring a CFO to compare equipment finance offers: who owns the advice?

When an equipment supplier or lender introduces a finance adviser, ask who is engaging that person and who pays for the work. The same meeting can include a salesperson, broker, financial analyst and company decision-maker. Write down those roles before treating a presentation as advice prepared for your business.

Ask a CFO candidate to disclose relevant referral payments, lender relationships and any compensation tied to completing the purchase. A commercial relationship does not by itself establish that an analysis is wrong. It does give management a question to evaluate before relying on a recommendation. Keep the explanation with the proposal and clarify whether the adviser will consider offers outside the introducing supplier's network.

Request a proposal that names the records to be collected, the analysis to be performed and the decisions the adviser will explain. Establish whether the fee covers obtaining comparable offers, questioning exclusions, checking the model and presenting findings to management. An introduction to a lender can be useful without including any of that analytical work.

The SBA's equipment guidance explains that lease terms vary. For this engagement, make someone responsible for obtaining the actual written terms and identifying gaps. Ask whether the CFO will contact suppliers directly or work only from documents your team supplies. Agree who owns unanswered questions and how an incomplete offer will be represented in the report.

Keep contract interpretation, tax treatment and financial-reporting conclusions assigned to the appropriate specialists. If the CFO coordinates those advisers, include the coordination work and expected inputs in the scope. A promise to handle everything leaves the buyer unable to tell which professional is responsible for a material conclusion.

Ask how the adviser is paid if the analysis recommends postponement, a different supplier or no purchase. Distinguish a fixed analytical fee, hourly work and any transaction-linked compensation. Compare the total arrangement rather than treating a separately advertised free review as the entire economic relationship.

Specify the number of quotation revisions and meetings included. Equipment orders can change while the lender is considering an application; a new specification may require substantial rework. Agree which changes trigger a new estimate and who can authorize it. Keep the professional fee separate from lender charges and supplier costs in the approval record.

Confirm that management receives completed work even if the purchase stops, subject to the agreed engagement terms. The records may remain useful when another offer arrives. State what happens to pending lender applications and who communicates the decision, so ending the analytical project does not leave a separate process running unattended.

The acceptance package should identify the quotations reviewed, exclusions, unanswered questions, recommendation and assumptions that could change it. Request the working comparison and supporting documents in a form your team can access. An explanation delivered only during a sales call is difficult to revisit when the final agreement changes.

Reserve a management review before the purchase commitment. Ask the CFO to explain a credible reason for choosing a different option and the consequence of waiting. Then confirm who checks the final terms against the reviewed offer. The adviser prepares the decision file; the company's authorized people remain responsible for approving the transaction.