CFO Services for Startups & Foreign Subsidiaries

In steady state, the engagement typically includes monthly financial close and reconciliation, a management reporting pack (board deck for startups, parent-company reporting pack for subsidiaries), statutory compliance tracking and filing (GST, TDS, MCA), cash flow and runway visibility, and a scheduled call or meeting with the engagement CA. The exact deliverables and cadence are scoped at onboarding based on your funding stage or parent-reporting requirements — it is not a fixed, one-size package.

The underlying skill set overlaps significantly, but this engagement is explicitly scoped to also cover foreign subsidiaries — Indian entities owned by an overseas parent — which introduces requirements a pure domestic startup engagement does not have: parent-company reporting under a different GAAP, transfer pricing documentation for intercompany transactions, and RBI filings like the Annual FLA Return that apply regardless of funding stage. If your entity is a startup only, our Virtual CFO service is also relevant; if you are a foreign-owned subsidiary, this is the correct starting point.

A full-time, experienced CFO in India commands a significant senior salary plus benefits and, in many startups, an ESOP allocation — a cost that is difficult to justify before a company reaches meaningful scale or a later funding stage. A fractional CFO-as-a-Service retainer is scoped to actual need — meeting cadence, reporting complexity, and transaction volume — and is typically a fraction of the fully-loaded cost of a full-time senior hire. The exact fee depends on your entity's complexity and is confirmed in writing before engagement begins.

Yes. As part of the engagement, PNPC's assigned CA attends board meetings, investor update calls, or parent-company finance reviews as your finance representative, presenting the numbers and fielding financial questions in real time. This is a standard part of the CFO-as-a-Service relationship, not a separate add-on.

Transfer pricing refers to the pricing of transactions between related parties — for example, a management fee your India subsidiary pays to its foreign parent, or a cost allocation for shared services. Under Section 92 of the Income-tax Act, these transactions must be priced at 'arm's length' — as if they were between unrelated parties — and supported by contemporaneous documentation. Any Indian entity with international transactions above the prescribed threshold with an associated enterprise must obtain and file a transfer pricing certification (Form 3CEB) along with a study supporting the pricing methodology used.

The Annual Return on Foreign Liabilities and Assets (FLA) is a mandatory RBI filing for any Indian entity that has received Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) or made Overseas Direct Investment (ODI) in any year, including the current year, and holds foreign assets or liabilities as at 31 March. It applies regardless of the entity's profitability or transaction volume — even a subsidiary with minimal activity in the reporting year must file if the underlying FDI/ODI condition is met. The filing deadline is set annually by the RBI, generally in the first half of the financial year following the reporting year.

We maintain the subsidiary's books to Indian statutory standards (Ind AS or applicable Indian GAAP depending on the entity's classification) for MCA and tax filing purposes, while separately preparing a reconciliation or reporting pack that translates the relevant figures into the format and policy basis your parent company's consolidation process requires. This typically involves reconciling items like revenue recognition timing, lease accounting treatment, or provisioning methodology where Ind AS and US GAAP/IFRS diverge.

Yes. The engagement structure adapts to the entity type. A Private Limited Company has additional obligations — Board meetings, statutory audit regardless of turnover, MCA annual filings (AOC-4, MGT-7) — that an LLP does not always carry in the same form. LLPs have their own filing regime (Form 8, Form 11) and a statutory audit threshold based on turnover or contribution. We scope the compliance calendar to your specific entity type.

Both models are available. Some clients want PNPC to own the full stack — bookkeeping, payroll processing, AP/AR management, and the CFO layer — under a single engagement. Others already have an internal bookkeeper or accounting team and want PNPC to provide the CFO-level oversight, reporting, and compliance ownership layered on top of their existing team's work. We scope this explicitly at onboarding.

PNPC prepares and organises the data room — cap table, MCA filing history, audited or reviewed financial statements, GST and TDS return history, bank reconciliations, the valuation report under Rule 11UA (for share issuances), and the transfer pricing file (for subsidiaries) — and fields the finance-related due diligence questions directly, working alongside your legal counsel. Because the books are maintained on an ongoing basis rather than assembled at the last minute, this process is materially faster and less disruptive to the founding or leadership team.

Yes. FC-GPR (Foreign Currency — Gross Provisional Return) must be filed on the RBI's FIRMS portal within 30 days of any equity share allotment to a person resident outside India — this is standard for both startups raising foreign VC/angel money and foreign subsidiaries receiving further capital infusion from their parent. We track and file this as part of the compliance calendar, along with FC-TRS for share transfers and ODI reporting where applicable.

Onboarding can move faster than the standard 2-4 week diagnostic when there is a live deadline — we prioritise the books and reports the investor or lender is actively requesting while the broader diagnostic continues in parallel. We have taken over engagements with active term sheets in progress; the key is early, direct communication about the deadline so we can sequence the work correctly.

We work with all commonly used platforms in the Indian and cross-border startup/subsidiary ecosystem — Tally, Zoho Books, QuickBooks Online, Xero, and NetSuite among others. For subsidiaries reporting into a parent's ERP system (SAP, Oracle NetSuite, or similar), we coordinate the India-side data feed into the group's consolidation process without requiring the subsidiary to run a duplicate, disconnected system.

Yes, for a Private Limited Company — statutory audit is mandatory every year regardless of turnover or profitability, under the Companies Act 2013. This applies equally to a wholly-owned foreign subsidiary and a domestic startup structured as a Pvt Ltd. LLPs are subject to audit only above prescribed turnover or contribution thresholds. We coordinate the statutory audit as part of the annual cycle, ensuring books are prepared to audit standard well ahead of the auditor's visit.

ESOP schemes for Indian companies are governed by Section 62(1)(b) of the Companies Act and the Companies (Share Capital and Debentures) Rules — this applies to grants made to Indian resident employees. For foreign employees or contractors, the structuring is more complex and may involve RSU-equivalent instruments, a foreign subsidiary's own equity plan, or coordination with an overseas parent's option pool, depending on how the group is structured. We advise on scheme design, pool sizing, grant documentation, and the tax treatment on exercise for Indian participants, and coordinate with cross-border counsel where a foreign-jurisdiction instrument is involved.

We generally recommend a minimum engagement period sufficient to complete at least one full compliance cycle — typically a quarter at minimum, and often a full financial year for entities undergoing the initial books cleanup and process design phase. Shorter, defined-scope engagements (for example, a single due-diligence preparation sprint) are also available where the need is genuinely one-time rather than ongoing.

Yes. With an operating office in Dubai alongside Chennai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad, PNPC provides fractional CFO and finance-function support for UAE Free Zone and Mainland entities as well — covering UAE Corporate Tax compliance, VAT, WPS payroll compliance, and the same investor/parent-reporting discipline. For groups with both an Indian and a UAE entity, we manage both under a single coordinated engagement rather than splitting the relationship across two firms.

Form 15CA is a declaration and Form 15CB is a Chartered Accountant's certificate, both required before certain remittances are made from India to a non-resident — including payments like management fees, royalty, or licence fees an Indian subsidiary pays to its foreign parent. The forms confirm that applicable TDS under Section 195 has been correctly assessed, considering any DTAA relief available. Banks generally will not process the outward remittance without these forms where required.

We build and maintain a live cash flow model that reflects actual monthly burn, committed and discretionary spend, and revenue or collection assumptions — updated at each monthly close rather than built once at fundraising time and left static. This gives the founding team a real-time answer to 'how many months of runway do we have' and supports scenario planning around hiring pace, marketing spend, or the timing of the next fundraise.

We treat this as a natural and expected transition point, not a loss of engagement. PNPC supports the transition — helping define the role, reviewing candidates from a technical-fit perspective if asked, and structuring a clean handover of processes, reporting templates, and institutional knowledge to the incoming full-time CFO. Many clients retain PNPC for statutory audit, tax, and compliance work even after an in-house CFO is hired, with the CFO-as-a-Service layer stepping back to a lighter oversight role.

Yes — the initial diagnostic conversation is specifically designed to right-size the engagement, including telling you honestly if a lighter accounting or advisory-review arrangement would serve you better than a full CFO-as-a-Service retainer. We would rather scope correctly than oversell.

All engagements operate under a signed engagement letter with confidentiality obligations consistent with professional Chartered Accountant standards. Access to financial systems, bank views, and cap table data is limited to the assigned engagement team, and data handling follows the firm's standard client-confidentiality protocols applied across all PNPC advisory and audit engagements.

Yes, though the scope is adjusted to include the sector-specific regulatory layer — for example, RBI NBFC or payment aggregator compliance for fintech, or specific healthcare data and licensing considerations for healthtech. The core CFO-as-a-Service framework (reporting, compliance calendar, cash flow modelling, FEMA/transfer pricing where relevant) remains, with the sector-specific regulatory compliance either handled directly by our team where we have the expertise, or coordinated with specialist counsel where it falls outside standard CA practice.

There is no fixed revenue or headcount threshold — the service is designed for entities where financial complexity (funding activity, cross-border structure, intercompany transactions, investor reporting requirements) has outgrown basic bookkeeping but has not yet reached the scale that clearly justifies a full-time, senior in-house CFO hire. In practice this spans early-stage funded startups with a handful of employees through subsidiaries with dozens of staff and meaningful intercompany transaction volume.

The engagement is structured around a team, not a single individual — a lead engagement CA is supported by a firm team with access to the client's files, reporting templates, and compliance calendar, so continuity is maintained even if the lead is on leave or the relationship transitions to a different team member over time.

Payroll processing can be included as part of a full-stack engagement or handled separately by PNPC's dedicated payroll service, depending on your preference. Where payroll is included, it covers salary computation, statutory deductions (PF, ESI, professional tax, TDS on salary), payslip generation, and compliance filing — coordinated with the CFO-level reporting so payroll cost feeds directly into your MIS and cash flow model.

A wholly-owned subsidiary reports financials solely to its single foreign parent, simplifying the reporting relationship even though the underlying compliance (FEMA, transfer pricing, FLA) is the same. A joint venture, with two or more shareholders potentially including an Indian partner, typically requires reporting calibrated to multiple stakeholders with potentially different information rights, and governance documents (joint venture agreement, shareholders' agreement) that need to be read carefully to understand reporting obligations, reserved matters, and any veto rights affecting financial decisions.

For share issuances, a valuation report is generally required — under Rule 11UA of the Income-tax Rules for tax purposes, and for FEMA pricing-guideline compliance where foreign investors are involved. This is typically prepared by a SEBI-registered Merchant Banker or a Chartered Accountant using an appropriate methodology (discounted cash flow, net asset value, or comparable company multiples, depending on the stage and available data). PNPC coordinates this process as part of the engagement, ensuring the valuation basis is defensible and consistent with the company's own financial model and investor narrative.

Yes. Notice response and representation before tax authorities is within scope, either as part of the ongoing retainer or as an escalated matter depending on the complexity and stakes involved. Because PNPC maintains your books and filing history on an ongoing basis, responding to a notice is materially faster — the relevant reconciliation and supporting documentation already exist rather than needing to be reconstructed from scratch.

Entity structuring for a foreign parent entering India is a related but distinct engagement — typically addressed before or alongside the initial CFO-as-a-Service onboarding if the subsidiary has not yet been incorporated. We advise on the trade-offs between a wholly-owned subsidiary (Pvt Ltd), a Branch Office, a Liaison Office, and a Project Office, each of which carries different FEMA permissions, tax treatment, and operational flexibility, before recommending the structure best suited to the parent's India strategy.

This is explicitly scoped at onboarding and varies by stage — weekly during an active funding round or parent audit, monthly in steady state for routine reporting and compliance, and on-call for urgent matters such as a bank query, an unexpected notice, or a time-sensitive investor request. The cadence is documented in the engagement letter so expectations are clear on both sides from day one.

The diagnostic and setup phase (2-4 weeks) delivers immediate value in the form of identified compliance gaps and a clean reporting framework. The full strategic value — reliable runway visibility, investor-ready reporting, audit-ready books, and a defensible transfer pricing position — typically compounds over the first two to three monthly cycles as the framework beds in and historical data accumulates for trend reporting.