Building Financial Infrastructure for Growth: The People Care Story 

Nov 17, 2025

People Care, a New York-based home care agency proudly delivering care and peace of mind since 1976, recently partnered with ProCFO Partners to strengthen their financial foundation and prepare for sustainable, strategic growth. With CFO Kristy Barthelemy leading the engagement, the organization moved from fragmented processes to more structured financial planning and data-driven decision-making. 

Heading the State for Transformation

At People Care, our commitment to service and operational excellence has always been core to who we are. But by early 2024, it became clear that in order to scale effectively and create sustainable impact, we needed a stronger financial foundation. 
 
A comprehensive review that year highlighted several gaps: our financial infrastructure lacked integration across departments, we had limited visibility into our actual financial position, and our processes were not aligned to support strategic planning. Cash management was largely reactive, and we did not have a clear roadmap to guide our growth priorities. 
 
To address these challenges, we engaged ProCFO Partners and brought on Kristy as our fractional CFO in July 2024. Our goal was not to find quick fixes, but to establish a more structured approach to financial operations and strategic planning that could support our long-term growth. 

Identifying Key Opportunities

From day one, Kristy worked closely with our leadership team to assess our needs and set priorities. Together, we identified several critical areas for improvement: 

• Building Budget Discipline & Accountability: We had never developed an integrated budget before. Without structured financial planning, it was difficult to align resources with our strategic objectives or understand what growth would actually require of us. 

• Unifying Processes & Reporting: Our workflows and financial reporting varied across departments, creating inefficiencies and making it harder to get a clear picture of our overall financial health. 

• Navigating Leadership Evolution: During the engagement, our CFO retired, and we needed to ensure a smooth transition while maintaining financial stability and continuity. 

• Elevating Strategic Thinking: One of Kristy’s most valuable contributions was how she elevated the quality of our strategic conversations. Her presence helped us think more clearly about our financial realities, align more effectively across the organization, and move forward with greater confidence. 

The ProCFO Financial Flywheel™ in Action

Kristy’s work was guided by the ProCFO Financial Flywheel™, a framework that connects six critical domains: Goals & Strategy, Revenue Model, Systems & Processes, Financial Reporting, Cash Management, and Profit Improvement. 
 
This structure gave us a clear path forward and helped us build momentum. What began as individual conversations about our financial challenges evolved into a more systematic approach to improvement. 

Key Outcomes Delivered

• Comprehensive Budgeting & Financial Modeling: For the first time, we developed an integrated budget complete with department-level revenue and expense models, plus staffing planning tools. This gave us the ability to forecast our financial needs and understand what hiring and growth would actually look like as we scaled. 

• Stronger Reporting and Accountability: Kristy restructured our financial reporting to give us more timely and useful insights into our actual performance. She also cleaned up outdated accounting records, improving the accuracy of our overall financial picture, and giving us better visibility into our true financial position. 

• Process Documentation and Team Education: Kristy worked with our team to document and improve our critical workflows, always connecting the reasoning behind each process to our broader organizational goals. This helped our team understand why what we were doing mattered.  

• Seamless Leadership Transition: When we eventually hired a new full-time CFO after one year, Kristy provided continuity and stability, ensuring a smooth handoff. She also helped us recognize the need for additional operational support to maintain our financial focus as we continue to grow. 

Building a Foundation for the Future

Perhaps the most important part of this journey is about how we changed. Kristy helped us cultivate a culture of accountability and data-driven thinking. She encouraged our leaders to understand and engage with our financial strategy, not as a compliance exercise, but as a tool for making smarter decisions about our growth. 
 
What began as a focus on solving immediate challenges evolved into something larger: more structured systems, greater financial clarity, and increased confidence in our ability to scale responsibly. 

Looking Ahead

As we move into our next phase of growth, we do so with stronger tools, better alignment, and a clearer vision for where we are headed. The systems and mindset we have developed through our work with Kristy and ProCFO Partners will serve us well as we grow. 
 
Kristy has brought more to us than just a fractional CFO, she has been a true partner in helping us think differently about our business. Our story proves that when you invest in building a solid financial foundation, you create the conditions for sustainable, confident growth.