Per-unit truth before portfolio averages
The first CFO deliverable is a profit line per unit, because averages hide the decision. Nightly rate and occupancy tell you which listing is busy; revenue per available night, cleaning cost per turnover, channel fees and municipal accommodation tax tell you which listing earns. It is common to discover the flagship unit, the one with the best reviews and the fullest calendar, running third on margin once turnover costs are counted.
We build this from tools hosts already use: pricing data from PriceLabs, channel data from Hostaway or Guesty, books in QuickBooks Online with a class per unit. The output is a one-page monthly pack you can read in five minutes, not a spreadsheet only we understand.
Cash flow when revenue is seasonal and refundable
Short-term rental cash needs a discipline long-term rent never demands. Future bookings are not cash you can spend, because a strong calendar can still refund its way to a weak month. Meanwhile HST, municipal accommodation tax and income tax instalments all accumulate inside your deposits, waiting to be remitted by someone with the discipline not to touch them.
The fix is mechanical: a 13-week cash forecast, tax money swept to a separate account every payout cycle, and a slow-season plan made during the strong season, whether that is minimum-stay changes, pricing-floor resets or a furnished winter tenant. We run the forecast monthly so January is boring instead of frightening.
Financing the next unit is a presentation problem
Lenders discount short-term rental income or ignore it outright, not because the cash is unreal but because the file in front of them cannot prove it is durable. This is where Tauro is unusual: Walla Assaf worked in banking and corporate finance before founding the firm, so we build the package the way a credit desk reads it. That means two years of per-unit history, occupancy trends, debt service coverage stated plainly, and CPA-prepared statements through a compilation engagement where the lender wants them.
Our Business Financing Advisory work covers the structural side of the same question: refinance an existing unit or buy clean, amortization length against seasonality, and when a commercial facility beats stretching another personal mortgage.
The strategy call each unit deserves annually
Every unit should re-earn its strategy once a year. Nightly hosting, furnished mid-term stays of 30-plus nights, which also sit on the HST-exempt side, and a conventional lease produce different margins, different workloads and different tax profiles, and the answer shifts as MAT, licensing rules and your own time change. Switching a unit's use has real HST consequences, so the decision runs through planning before it runs through the listing settings.
The same discipline applies before a purchase. We underwrite a prospective unit the way a lender would underwrite you: downside occupancy instead of the listing agent's projection, realistic cleaning economics at a two-night average stay, MAT and licensing rules in that specific municipality, and carrying cost through the slow season. Toronto's principal-residence restriction, for example, removes classic investor STRs from the map entirely, and a buyer who learns that after closing has paid for the lesson. Ten minutes of underwriting is cheaper.
| The number we track | The decision it drives |
|---|---|
| Revenue per available night, by unit | Keep, convert or sell the unit |
| Cleaning cost per turnover | Minimum-stay rules and pricing floors |
| Booking window length | How far ahead the cash forecast can see |
| Debt service coverage | Whether the next purchase can be financed |
| Slow-season cash cushion | When to draw from the business, when to hold |
What the engagement looks like
A Fractional CFO engagement gives an STR operator the finance function a hotel group takes for granted, sized to a handful of units: monthly numbers with a working call, a rolling forecast, lender-ready reporting, and a direct line to a CPA when a broker sends you a deal mid-week. Decisions like the next purchase, a co-host arrangement versus a property manager's fee, or stepping from four units to eight get modelled instead of guessed.
We work with hosts across Mississauga and the GTA. Scope and fee are quoted in writing after a free 15-minute discovery call, so the engagement itself is a decision you get to make on numbers.
