ShoestringCFO turns your bank activity into the four numbers every founder needs, plus a P&L you can hand to anyone. No spreadsheets. No bookkeeper. No accounting degree.
14 days free, no credit card. Then $19 a month.
Northstar LabsDashboardThe dashboard
Every founder opens their finances asking the same four things. ShoestringCFO answers them first, in plain numbers, and keeps the detail one click away.
Every account in one number, updated the moment new activity lands. Credit card balances stay out of it, because they are debt, not cash.
Across 2 accounts. Last 90 days below.
Average monthly burn over the last three complete months, so one big invoice does not swing the number. Click it to see what the money went to.
Operating spend only. The dashed line is the three month average.
Cash divided by burn, shown as months and a date. Green past six months, yellow from three to six, red under three. No surprises in March.
Cash runs out around mid April 2027 at the current burn.
Revenue, cost of revenue, gross profit and net, as a P&L you can hand to an investor. Every line traces back to a categorized transaction.
Profit and loss, same month, same transactions.
How it works
Ten minutes the first time. A couple of minutes a week after that.
01
Drop in a CSV export from any bank. ShoestringCFO reads the columns, skips duplicates and never asks for your bank password. Automatic bank sync is coming.
02
Every transaction gets a clean vendor and a category, with a note on why. Rules learn from your corrections. Flag anything odd and come back to it later.
03
Cash, burn, runway, P&L and balance sheet, all from the same clean record. Add Founder Plus and get a weekly note on what changed and why.
When you need more
Price, cost and volume for each thing you sell feed a 24-month plan. Test a hire or a price change without touching the base case.
A focused portal with your story, your published plan and live numbers: cash, burn, runway and P&L straight from your books. A preview for the first call, deeper diligence only after you approve it.
ShoestringCFO never asks for your bank password. Import a CSV from your bank today; automatic sync through Plaid is coming.
Read our security practicesPricing
Start with Founder Core. Add Founder Plus when you want the numbers explained. Unlock the Investor Portal when you raise.
Start here
Or $190 a year, save 17%.
14 days free, no card needed.
Numbers, explained
Or $490 a year, save 17%.
Every account starts on Founder Core. Try Founder Plus free for 14 days when you switch from Billing.
When you are raising
Unlock it from Billing when you need it.
Pay once from Billing. One company, no expiry.
Questions
ShoestringCFO at shoestringcfo.com is self-serve software for burn, cash and runway. It is not an accounting, bookkeeping or fractional CFO service, and it is not connected to StartupCFO.AI (startupcfo.ai) or myStartUpCFO (mystartupcfo.com).
ShoestringCFO used to be called StartupCFO. Same product, same founder, new name. It is not StartupCFO.AI or any other company with StartupCFO in its name.
No. ShoestringCFO is built for the stage before you can afford an accountant or care about GAAP. It turns your bank activity into cash on hand, monthly burn, runway and a P&L you can read. When you do hire an accountant, the clean categorized record is exactly what they want.
Export a CSV from your bank and drop it in. ShoestringCFO reads the columns, cleans up vendor names, categorizes every line and skips duplicates if you upload the same file twice. Automatic bank sync through Plaid is coming. We never ask for your bank password.
Cash on hand divided by your average monthly burn over the last three complete months. The current month is never averaged in, because it is still in progress. Under three months shows red, three to six shows yellow, six or more shows green.
An AI CFO. It reads the same numbers you do and tells you what changed and why: a CFO insights feed on the dashboard, a weekly email digest, and conversations grounded in your real transactions. It learns what is normal for your company and flags what is not. Founder Plus is $49 a month.
Yes. The Investor Portal is a one-time $250 unlock. You publish projections and investor-safe reports, share a preview link, and keep deeper diligence behind your approval. Investors never see your workspace.
Every account starts with 14 days of Founder Core free, no card needed. Founder Plus can be tried free for 14 days when you switch to it from Billing. After that Founder Core is $19 a month or $190 a year, and Founder Plus is $49 a month or $490 a year.
The dashboard previews on this page use sample data for a made-up company, Northstar Labs. They are not real customer numbers.
Import one bank export and see your cash, burn and runway today.
