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Johnson CFO

  • The Finance Team Behind Your Firm

    Johnson CFO works with one kind of client: law firms. Every engagement, from monthly books to CFO strategy, is built around how firms actually earn, bill, and grow. The result is a clear view of your numbers and a plan to keep more of what your firm earns.
    Our Story

Why Law Firms

Johnson CFO began in 2013 as a fractional CFO, accounting, and tax practice serving businesses across many industries. Law firms stood out. Their billing models, trust accounting rules, and partner economics called for deeper expertise than general accounting provides. In 2022, we made law firms our only focus. Every process, report, and recommendation we use today was built around how firms actually operate.
Specialized in Law Firm Profitability

One Team

Accounting, tax, CFO, and wealth strategy, scaled to your firm, from a few hours a month to full financial leadership.
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Why Choose Us

Why Choose Us

There are a lot of accountants. Very few understand law firms. We work exclusively with law firms, which means we understand trust accounting compliance, billable hour economics, realization rates, and partner compensation structures, not just general business finance.
Every Service, One Team
CFO, accounting, tax, and wealth strategy, all built for law firms. One point of contact who knows your firm, and no time lost explaining how it works.
Built to Scale With You
Every firm needs bookkeeping, controller, and CFO work from the start, just in different amounts. Engagements are sized to your firm today and grow as you do.
Track Record

We’ve helped law firms find hidden profit, fix billing inefficiencies, survive financial challenges, and build the foundation to grow with confidence. Our clients don’t just get cleaner books. They get clarity on where their firm is going.

Meet Nathan Johnson

Nathan Johnson Owner
Nathan Johnson, CMA, EA

Nathan Johnson, CMA and EA, is the founder of Johnson CFO and leads every client engagement personally. He works with law firm owners to increase profitability, strengthen cash flow, and build wealth beyond the firm.


He brings more than 20 years of hands-on financial leadership. Early in his career, he rose from AP/AR Manager to Controller at a fast-growing transportation company, helping it earn a place on the Inc. 500 list in 2007. When the 2008 financial crisis hit, he stepped into the CFO role and spent the next five years guiding the business through it, rebuilding the plan and returning it to profitability.


Since 2013, Nathan has served as a fractional CFO, accountant, and tax preparer across many industries. In 2022, he chose to focus exclusively on law firms, bringing that breadth of experience to the businesses where he saw the greatest opportunity to make a difference.


Outside the office, Nathan holds a black belt in the internal martial arts of Taiji and Baguazhang, a discipline he still practices today.


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FAQ

A fractional CFO gives your firm the involvement of a CFO without the cost of a full-time hire. We analyze profitability, find opportunities for improvement, and dig into any financial issue your firm is facing. We also build KPI dashboards so your partners and team work from the same numbers.

We focus on one thing: law firm profitability. CPAs are trained mainly for tax and compliance work. Nathan Johnson is a CMA (Certified Management Accountant), a credential built on in-depth analysis of revenue and costs to guide business decisions. He’s also an Enrolled Agent, so tax is covered too. Because we work only with law firms, we already know trust accounting and the financial issues specific to legal practices, so you don’t pay for a learning curve.

We offer three tiers of engagement: Bookkeeper, Controller and CFO. Most are flat-rate and pricing is set for each firm based on what it needs. Compared with hiring in-house, you get higher-quality, specialized work at a savings. A short call is the fastest way to get a quote for your firm.

No firm is too small. Every firm needs all three levels of support from day one, just in smaller amounts. Bookkeeping records transactions and keeps the books current. Controller work checks that output each month: reviewing financial statements, booking month-end entries, and fixing errors, so the numbers you rely on are accurate. CFO guidance turns those numbers into decisions, starting with early choices like entity structure and tax planning. Our engagements scale an hour or ten at a time, so you get the right mix now and add more as you grow.

Yes. We manage trust accounting, including a monthly three-way reconciliation and support with disbursements, and we can clean up prior periods if needed. We’ll also help you understand what a sound trust accounting process requires and the steps to get there.

It depends on where your firm is starting and how quickly your team adopts change. New processes take some time to put in place, but the bigger factor is usually follow-through. We’re ready to drive change quickly, and patient enough to see it through.  A call will give you a realistic timeline for your firm.


Our primary platform is QuickBooks Online, and we’ve worked with practice management systems including Filevine and Clio. If you use something else, we’ll learn it. With systems that work well, or an in-house expert, we get up to speed quickly. If your systems need fixing, it takes longer, but you come out with cleaner data and a setup that works.
It depends on how much change your firm needs and how involved you choose to be. Getting started means gathering information and setting up access, which an admin on your team can usually handle. After that, your time goes to financial meetings, approving changes, and backing their execution, because change only sticks when firm leadership is behind it. The goal is to save you time overall, not add to your workload.
Johnson CFO is led by Nathan Johnson, CMA, EA. He has 20+ years of experience in accounting, management and finance. He founded the firm in 2013 and has worked exclusively with law firms since 2022. That specialization means we already know trust accounting, legal billing and the metrics that drive law firm profitability, and we’ve seen the issues firms like yours face. As a small firm, we keep Nathan as your main point of contact, so you work directly with the person doing the analysis.

Ask yourself three questions:


1. Are you measuring realization?

2. Are you measuring profitability for each attorney?

3. Are you comparing overhead to wages?


If the answer to any of these is no, it’s worth a check. This matters most if cash runs tight despite steady work, because these metrics usually pinpoint why.