Real EstateFractional
Business management · Calgary, Alberta

A business manager in Calgary, without the hire.

For growing businesses — roughly $1M to $5M in revenue — that are big enough to need a business manager and not yet big enough to hire one full-time.

The Back Office Co. carries the work a business manager carries — financial administration, corporate administration, and the systems that hold it together — fractionally: the operation run whole, part-time, by senior experience.

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The operator's desk
Fig. 01 — Senior business operations ownership, part-time.
TAB 01FOUR PILLARS

The work a business manager carries.

The operation itself — the financials, the systems, the deadlines.

Finance.

Books, payables, receivables, payroll and month-end kept current, with the cash position and upcoming obligations visible.

The numbers stay current, and the owner stops guessing.

  • Bookkeeping — kept current and reconciled monthly, in the program your business already uses
  • Bill pay — run on a set rhythm, vendor terms tracked
  • Receivables — issued on time and followed up, politely
  • Expenses — receipts captured, cards reconciled
  • Payroll — prepared and run through your provider or accounting system
  • Benefits administration — enrollments and changes handled with your provider
  • People paperwork — onboarding and departure administration, handled
  • Month-end — closed on time, every time, with reporting that gets read
  • Year-end — a clean package handed to your accountant

Business operations.

Priorities, recurring work, vendors and deadlines tracked, coordinated and followed through.

Priorities visible, owners named, commitments followed through.

  • Priorities — agreed with the owner, tracked in the open, re-set as things change
  • Recurring work — on a set cadence, tracked ahead of time
  • Vendors and contractors — quotes coordinated, paperwork on file
  • Stakeholder coordination — the people the work touches, kept informed and in step
  • Follow-through and accountability — commitments chased to done, nothing left hanging

Corporate administration.

Contracts, subscriptions, company records, filings, renewals and documents for the accountant and lawyer kept in order and on time.

Tracked, prepared, and met — by design, not by luck.

  • One deadline calendar — filings, renewals, registrations
  • Licences, permits, insurance — tracked ahead of expiry
  • Remittance and instalment dates — on the calendar, and met
  • Certificates and records — collected, filed, current
  • Contracts — kept organized, with deadlines and expiry dates tracked
  • Tools and subscriptions — inventoried, every renewal known in advance
  • Lawyer and accountant documents — coordinated, and there on time

Systems and process improvement.

Recurring work turned into documented procedures, checklists and a monthly reporting rhythm — then run that way every month.

The operation, written down — running on rails instead of reminders.

  • Workflows — documented and followed, not held in memory
  • Documented procedures — the recurring work written down, step by step
  • Templates and checklists — built once, used every time
  • Process cleanup — the workarounds and bottlenecks found and fixed
  • Records — filed in your own systems, named and in order
  • The monthly summary — the state of the business, on one page

Every engagement draws on all four pillars. The tier sets the depth.

TAB 02THE GAP

The business outgrew the owner
doing everything.

It has not outgrown the owner knowing everything. The books run a month behind the business. Systems are held together with memory and good intentions. Deadlines get met by luck instead of by design. And every decision still lands back on the owner — because no one else owns the whole.

A fractional business operations manager steps into that gap: senior business operations ownership, part-time, without the salary, benefits, and management overhead of a full-time hire. Senior experience has gone fractional — and growing businesses are not going back. Buy the expertise, skip the headcount.

TAB 03THE CHOICE

Three ways to cover the role.

An honest map of the options, because the right one depends on the business.

A full-time hire. Run the full cost first: salary, employer contributions, benefits, paid vacation, and managing the person. A full-time hire costs the business roughly $7,500 a month, all-in — and still answers to you. Right when the operation genuinely needs someone in the chair all day; heavy below that.

The patchwork. A bookkeeper here, a payroll service there, the rest of it in the owner’s head at midnight — pieces, with nobody running the whole. Pieces are not the problem; nobody running the whole is.

The fractional back office. The operation run whole — senior, unsupervised, only the hours the operation needs — for a monthly retainer: Foundation $2,500 a month, Embedded $4,000, Partner $5,500. Every engagement draws on all four pillars; the tier sets the depth. Onboarding is $500, one time — and the founding engagement has it waived, with the published tier rates locked for the first twelve months.

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TAB 04THE DIFFERENCE

Not task help. The whole operation.

Why a back office — the difference between handing off tasks and having the operation owned.

Proactive, not reactive. Filings are prepared before they are due. Receivables are followed before they are stale. Deadlines are flagged before they are close. The owner never has to initiate, remind, or chase — everything runs on the system, and a person is watching it.

Months that close clean. Books reconciled, month-end closed on time, every time, the monthly summary with the owner while the month still means something. When the accountant asks, it is already there.

An owner’s standard. Your business gets an owner’s standard of care, not a contractor’s. Receivables are chased, costs questioned, and deadlines kept the way we chase, question, and keep our own — because the work carries our name, too.

The quiet, kept. The quiet is that standing feeling — that it is handled. Someone has it, and it no longer has to be you.

The business feels the order. You feel the quiet.

TAB 05FILED UNDER F

Asked, and answered.

Straight answers, no fine print.

What does a business manager do?
Carries the operation behind the business. Finance: bookkeeping kept current and reconciled, bill pay on a set rhythm, receivables issued and followed up, payroll prepared and run through your provider or accounting system, month-end closed on time. Business operations: priorities, recurring work, vendors and follow-through, tracked in the open. Corporate administration: contracts, certificates and records kept in order, on one deadline calendar of filings, renewals and remittance dates. And the systems underneath: documented procedures, templates and checklists, and a monthly summary the owner actually reads.
How much does a business manager cost in Calgary?
A full-time hire costs a business roughly $7,500 a month, all-in — salary, employer contributions, benefits, paid vacation, and managing the person. The fractional back office runs the same operation whole for a monthly retainer: Foundation $2,500 a month, Embedded $4,000, Partner $5,500. Every engagement draws on all four pillars; the tier sets the depth. Onboarding is $500, one time.
Is this a full-time hire?
No — it is a fractional engagement, not an employment relationship: senior business operations ownership, part-time, for the hours the operation needs, with no employment overhead. The work is remote-first and runs inside your own systems; on-site time can be arranged when a piece of work genuinely needs a person present.
What is not included?
Production work — a website, a presentation, a document, or a report — never sits inside the retainer. It can be built as a separate project, quoted in advance at $125/hr with written approval. The same rule covers anything outside the agreed scope: quoted in advance and billed at $125/hr, only with written pre-approval.
TAB 08FILED UNDER F

Filed under F.

Straight answers, no fine print.

Where do we start?
With a conversation — what is piling up, and what keeps getting missed. If fractional business operations is the right shape, the first thirty days run in order from there: access and a clear look, the books brought current, one deadline calendar, the monthly rhythm stood up.
What if my books are behind?
Then the first month is for exactly that — the books are brought current inside it. A catch-up beyond that shape is quoted in advance, at $125 an hour with written approval first. Never a surprise on an invoice.
Do you work in our systems, or yours?
Yours. Access is by invitation inside the systems the business already runs, and everything lives there — the status, the records, the deadlines. Nothing is copied out to run the engagement, and access stays yours to revoke at any time. And if the business does not have a system worth the name yet, the structure is set up as part of the build — named, filed, and in order.
Do you work with businesses outside Calgary?
Yes. Calgary-based and remote-first, and the operation travels — a business anywhere can be run from inside its own systems.
What if the work needs you on site?
When the work calls for someone in the room, on-site time can be arranged — within Calgary. The operation is remote-first by design; on-site is the exception, arranged when a piece of work genuinely needs a person present.
Is this like hiring a virtual or executive assistant?
No — the distinction is structural. This is a business operations manager running the operation whole: the financials, the systems, the deadlines, the cadence — on documented processes, inside your own systems. An assistant supports a person instead — tasks as they are handed over, at your direction. Inbox, personal calendar, travel, errands: that is assistant work, and a different desk entirely. The longer version: Part-time, contract, or fractional?
Do you handle marketing or social media?
Social media is not our specialty — day-to-day marketing stays with you or your marketer. Production is different: a website, a presentation, a print piece, or a report can be built as a separate project, quoted in advance at $125/hr with written approval. It never sits inside the retainer.
Why not just hire someone full-time?
Most businesses this size run on one of two arrangements, and both leak. The first is the patchwork: a bookkeeper here, a payroll service there, the rest of it in the owner’s head — done at midnight, by the most expensive person in the business. Pieces are not the problem; nobody running the whole is. The second is the full-time hire — run the full cost first: salary, employer contributions, benefits, paid vacation, and managing the person, for a week that is largely presence the operation does not need. A fractional business operations manager is the third arrangement: the operation run whole, by someone senior — the financials, the systems, the deadlines, the cadence — only the hours it requires, no employment overhead. If you need someone in the chair all day, hire them. Most businesses this size need the work done, not the chair filled.
Is this bookkeeping, or accounting?
Financial administration. Bookkeeping kept current and reconciled in your own systems, bill pay and receivables on a rhythm, payroll run through your own provider or accounting system, monthly reporting that gets read. Tax filings and accounting advice stay with your accountant — the back office works alongside them, and hands over clean books.
Is there a minimum term?
Three months to start, then month to month, with thirty days’ written notice either side. Long enough to stand the system up properly; never a lock-in.
Is there an onboarding fee?
$500, one time — it covers the build: The Register configured, the deadline calendar built, access and systems set up. The books are brought current inside your first month.
Where do my files live?
In your systems — they are already yours. The work lives there from day one, so there is nothing to extract, and the documented systems and processes are handed over complete.
What happens at the end of an engagement?
Your records stay with the business — they lived in your systems from day one, and the documented processes are handed over complete. The Register is the back office’s own system: it stays with The Back Office Co., and access closes when the engagement ends.

Get your time back.

Tell us about your business and how we can help. A few lines is plenty — every message is read and answered by the back office itself. White-glove, start to finish. No slide deck, no pressure — we will take it from there.

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The Back Office Co. · Calgary, Alberta