Outsourced CFO & Accounting Services in Wichita
Financial leadership for the Air Capital of the World. Expert outsourced finance for aerospace manufacturers, aviation suppliers, agricultural businesses, and energy companies navigating cyclical production demands, quality compliance, and commodity price volatility in south-central Kansas.
The Wichita Business Landscape
Wichita earns the title "Air Capital of the World" not through nostalgia but through present-day manufacturing output. More than 35% of all general aviation aircraft built in the United States come from Wichita facilities, and the city's aerospace supply chain is one of the most sophisticated industrial clusters in the Western Hemisphere. Textron Aviation produces Cessna and Beechcraft aircraft here. Spirit AeroSystems manufactures fuselage sections, nacelles, and wing components for Boeing, Airbus, and other global OEMs. Bombardier Learjet operated in Wichita for decades. But the real economic story is not the anchor companies themselves—it is the hundreds of precision machine shops, avionics suppliers, composite fabricators, tooling companies, and engineering firms that form the tiers below them, each one a critical link in a supply chain that demands extraordinary quality and financial discipline.
Beyond aerospace, Wichita sits in the heart of one of the most productive agricultural regions on earth. Kansas consistently ranks among the top three wheat-producing states in America, and the cattle industry generates billions in annual revenue across the state. The energy sector—both traditional oil and gas extraction and a rapidly growing wind energy industry—adds another economic pillar. Koch Industries, headquartered in Wichita, is one of the largest privately held companies in the world. Cargill and other agricultural processors maintain significant operations in the region. Healthcare, anchored by Ascension Via Christi and Wesley Medical Center, serves a metro area of roughly 650,000 people.
For business owners managing $5M to $50M in revenue in Wichita, the common thread is cyclicality. Aerospace production rates rise and fall with commercial aircraft orders and defense budgets. Agricultural profitability swings with commodity prices and weather patterns. Energy company revenues track oil prices, wind production tax credits, and regulatory changes. The companies that thrive in Wichita are the ones with financial leadership that can build models to weather these cycles—maintaining enough cash to survive downturns while positioning to capture growth when production ramps back up.
35%+ of All
US Aircraft Built Here
National general aviation production share
650K Metro
Population
Largest city in Kansas
Top 3 State
Wheat Production
Agricultural heartland of America
Aerospace Manufacturing and Supply Chain Finance
The financial complexity of aerospace manufacturing in Wichita is orders of magnitude beyond what a typical manufacturing company faces. Every part that goes onto an aircraft must meet specifications defined by AS9100 quality management standards and, in many cases, NADCAP special process accreditation for operations like heat treating, welding, chemical processing, and non-destructive testing. These certifications are not just operational requirements—they have direct financial implications. Maintaining AS9100 certification requires ongoing investment in quality systems, training, documentation, and surveillance audits. Losing certification means losing the ability to ship parts to major OEMs, which for many Wichita suppliers would mean losing 80% or more of their revenue overnight.
Job costing in aerospace is exceptionally demanding. A precision machine shop producing landing gear components for Spirit AeroSystems must track material costs, labor hours, machine time, inspection costs, and scrap rates for each production order. Long-term agreements with OEMs often include annual price reduction requirements—typically 2% to 5% per year—which means the supplier must find continuous efficiency improvements or watch margins erode. At the same time, raw material costs for aerospace-grade aluminum, titanium, and specialty alloys can fluctuate significantly, creating a squeeze between fixed pricing commitments to customers and variable input costs.
Capital equipment decisions add another layer. A five-axis CNC machining center can cost $500,000 to $2 million, and the ROI calculation must account for not just the production capacity it adds but the contracts that capacity will serve, the labor required to operate it, and the maintenance and tooling costs over its useful life. For a $10M to $30M aerospace supplier, these equipment decisions represent make-or-break investments that require financial modeling far beyond what a bookkeeper can provide.
Aircraft Production Cycles and Cash Flow Management
Wichita's aerospace economy is inherently cyclical, and every business in the supply chain feels the swings. When Boeing increases production rates on the 737 or Airbus ramps up A320 output, demand cascades down through Spirit AeroSystems to the hundreds of Wichita suppliers that provide sub-assemblies, machined parts, and specialized services. During these upswings, companies face a different kind of financial challenge: they must invest in capacity—hiring workers, purchasing equipment, expanding facilities, building inventory—before the revenue from increased production fully materializes. Working capital needs can spike dramatically during a ramp-up, and companies that do not plan for this can find themselves cash-strapped even as their order books are full.
The downside of the cycle is equally dangerous. When aircraft orders slow—as they did dramatically during the Boeing 737 MAX grounding and the global aviation downturn of 2020—Wichita suppliers can see revenues drop 20% to 40% within quarters. Fixed costs for facilities, equipment leases, and core staff continue regardless of production volume. Companies that entered the downturn without adequate cash reserves or credit facilities were forced into layoffs, facility closures, or distressed sales. The financial scars from that period are still fresh in Wichita's business community.
Managing through these cycles requires financial planning that most growing companies do not do well on their own. Cash reserve targets, revolving credit facility sizing, scenario-based forecasting tied to OEM production rate announcements, and workforce planning models that balance the cost of retaining skilled workers against the risk of losing them during downturns—these are the financial tools that separate companies that survive cycles from those that don't. A finance partner with aerospace experience understands that the time to prepare for a downturn is during the boom, not after orders have already started falling.
Agriculture and Commodity Price Volatility
Kansas agriculture is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and Wichita serves as its commercial hub. Wheat farming, cattle ranching, sorghum production, and the food processing, equipment supply, and logistics companies that support them create an agricultural economy that touches virtually every corner of south-central Kansas. For businesses operating in this sector at the $5M to $50M level—grain elevators, feed lots, equipment dealers, crop input suppliers, agricultural processing companies—commodity price volatility is the defining financial challenge. Wheat prices can swing 30% or more in a single year based on global supply conditions, weather events, export demand, and futures market dynamics. Cattle prices are similarly volatile, influenced by feed costs, herd sizes, and consumer demand patterns.
The financial management implications are significant. Revenue forecasting for an agricultural business is fundamentally different from forecasting for a service company or a manufacturer with stable order books. Cash flow follows seasonal patterns tied to planting, growing, harvest, and marketing cycles, with large capital outlays in spring and revenue concentration in fall and winter. Crop insurance, which is essential for managing weather risk, creates its own accounting complexity with premium payments, indemnity calculations, and the interaction between insurance proceeds and operating revenue.
Hedging strategies using futures and options contracts add another dimension. A grain elevator operator that does not hedge effectively can lose a year's profit on a single adverse price movement. But hedging creates accounting complexity—mark-to-market adjustments, hedge effectiveness documentation, and the distinction between speculative and hedging positions for tax purposes all require financial expertise that goes beyond standard accounting. For agricultural businesses growing from $5M to $20M and beyond, having a finance partner who understands both the operational realities of agriculture and the financial instruments used to manage commodity risk is not optional—it is the difference between controlled growth and financial crisis.
Energy: Oil, Gas, and the Wind Corridor
Kansas sits atop productive oil and gas formations, and Wichita has been a center for energy industry operations for more than a century. But the energy landscape is shifting. While traditional extraction continues—Kansas produced roughly 30 million barrels of crude oil annually in recent years—the state has also become one of the nation's leading wind energy producers. Kansas ranks among the top five states for installed wind capacity, and the wind corridor running across central and western Kansas has attracted billions in investment from utility-scale wind farm developers. For the companies that service this industry—construction contractors, turbine maintenance firms, land management companies, and electrical infrastructure builders—the financial challenges combine elements of both traditional energy and construction.
Oil and gas companies in the $5M to $50M range face the perpetual challenge of revenue that tracks commodity prices over which they have no control. Capital expenditure decisions—whether to drill new wells, workover existing ones, or acquire producing properties—must be modeled against multiple price scenarios. Depletion calculations, intangible drilling cost deductions, and percentage depletion allowances create a tax environment that is highly specialized. For wind energy companies, the financial landscape includes production tax credits, accelerated depreciation schedules, power purchase agreement structures, and the long-term maintenance reserve planning that 20-year turbine lifecycles require.
The intersection of traditional and renewable energy creates opportunity for companies that can operate across both sectors. A construction company that built pipeline infrastructure can also build wind turbine foundations. An electrical contractor that wired oilfield facilities can install substations for wind farms. These crossover businesses need financial reporting that tracks profitability by sector, models the different risk profiles of each business line, and ensures that the growth in one area does not create cash flow problems for the other.
Healthcare and Professional Services in the Wichita Metro
Wichita's healthcare sector serves as both a major employer and a critical service provider for the broader south-central Kansas region. Ascension Via Christi operates four hospitals in the Wichita area. Wesley Medical Center, part of HCA Healthcare, is another major system. Together with dozens of independent physician practices, specialty clinics, behavioral health providers, and home health agencies, they form a healthcare market that is growing steadily as the metro population ages and expands. For healthcare businesses managing $5M to $30M in revenue, the financial challenges center on payer mix management, reimbursement rate negotiations, and the capital requirements of clinical expansion.
Kansas Medicaid reimbursement rates are among the lower tiers nationally, which means practices that serve a significant Medicaid population must manage their payer mix carefully to maintain viable margins. Commercial payer negotiations, Medicare reimbursement trends, and the growing complexity of value-based care contracting all require financial analysis that goes beyond recording transactions. Multi-location practices face consolidation challenges—understanding which locations are genuinely profitable, which are being subsidized, and where expansion makes financial sense versus where it would dilute margins.
Professional services firms in Wichita—including engineering firms that serve the aerospace industry, accounting firms, legal practices, and technology services companies—share a common financial challenge: their primary asset and primary cost is the same thing: people. Tracking utilization rates, managing project profitability, and building compensation structures that retain talent in a market where aerospace employers compete aggressively for skilled professionals all require financial leadership that understands the economics of people-based businesses.
What Growing Wichita Businesses Need from a Finance Partner
The defining characteristic of the Wichita economy is that nearly every major industry here is cyclical. Aerospace production rates rise and fall. Commodity prices for wheat, cattle, and oil fluctuate with global markets. Energy production shifts with regulation and technology. Even healthcare, which is generally considered recession-resistant, faces reimbursement rate changes and regulatory shifts that can alter the financial landscape for growing practices. A finance partner serving Wichita businesses must be comfortable with this cyclicality and capable of building financial plans that account for it.
That means scenario-based forecasting rather than single-point projections. It means maintaining appropriate cash reserves and credit facilities sized for downturns, not just optimized for growth periods. It means understanding that a Wichita aerospace supplier's inventory decisions are not just about carrying costs but about maintaining the ability to respond to sudden production ramp-ups that can mean the difference between keeping a major OEM contract and losing it to a competitor. These are strategic financial decisions that require a finance team with industry knowledge, not just accounting skills.
Wichita business owners also tend to be diversified. The owner of a machine shop might also own commercial real estate. A farming operation might have an equipment dealership or a trucking company on the side. An energy company executive might own a restaurant group. These multi-entity portfolios are common in mid-market cities like Wichita, and they require consolidated financial reporting, tax planning across multiple entities and entity types, and strategic guidance that considers the owner's total financial picture rather than treating each business in isolation.
Scale Your Wichita Business with Confidence
Get finance leadership that understands aerospace quality compliance, aircraft production cycles, agricultural commodity risk, and the industries that built the Air Capital of the World. We work with Wichita businesses from $5M to $50M in revenue.