About
Built for e-commerce founders who can't afford CFO surprises.
HQ CFO is the full-suite finance HQ for e-commerce operators running on Shopify, Amazon, CheckoutChamp, Stripe, PayPal, Airwallex, and Payoneer at $200K-$1M+/mo. Founder-led, Hong Kong-incorporated, one contract that replaces the bookkeeper + CPA + corp-law + ad-rep stack.
The operator behind the brand
Club Thapa.
Club Thapa runs HQ CFO. The brand didn't start as a brand. It started as a pattern that repeated.
For 8 years before HQ CFO, Club ran a tax and finance practice in Hong Kong for e-commerce founders. The work was broad: setting up entities across the US, Cyprus, UAE, Singapore, and Hong Kong, cross-border tax planning, compliance reviews, and annual returns. Big-4 quality, without the Big-4 partner bill.
The same thing kept happening in e-commerce: Shopify, Amazon FBA, and paid-traffic funnels on CheckoutChamp, Stripe, and PayPal. A founder doing $400K-$800K/mo would come in with a tax question. Within the first hour of looking at their Shopify, CheckoutChamp, and Stripe data, we'd find $80K-$200K locked in their processor stack. Rolling reserves the bookkeeper read wrong. AMEX holdbacks the CPA wasn't tracking. PayPal and Airwallex settlements the founder didn't know they could release.
It happened with enough founders that the cause was clear. The funnel-DTC finance stack was broken, and it broke in one spot. Founders had four vendors: a bookkeeper, a CPA, a corp-law firm, and an ad-rep handling processor disputes. None of them talked to each other. The cash leaked in the gaps between them.
Something else was clear. These founders weren't bad operators. They ran $5M brands on $220K/mo of Meta spend with teams of three to five. The setup is hard: many payment IDs, many processors, and many entities, plus margin clarity, state-by-state sales tax, and Section 174 R&D rules. Most advisory firms were built for simple SaaS books. They weren't built for an operator running seven domains, three card processors, two LLCs, and a Delaware C-corp parent on top of a CheckoutChamp funnel.
HQ CFO fixes that exact gap. We start every engagement with the recovery audit, because that's where the fast dollars and the fastest proof are. Then we run the department: strategic CFO work monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly depending on tier; books closed by the 10th; tax planning that looks forward, not just backward; and compliance monitoring across ROSCA, VAMP, state-AG, and FDA. Corp-law goes through partners we've vetted. One contract. One vendor. One number to call.
The brand is founder-led on purpose. Big-4 firms put a senior partner in front of you during the sale, then hand the work to an associate. We keep Club on the strategy calls. The delivery team handles the day-to-day.
We chose Hong Kong on purpose. The time zone works for clients in the US, EU, and Asia-Pacific. The rules are clean for the cross-border structuring our clients need. And an HK Ltd is the right setup for a single-founder firm growing into a small team, without partnership-equity headaches.
We're clear about who this isn't for: Amazon-FBA-first operators, SaaS founders, pre-$200K/mo brands, $5M+/mo brands that need a multi-partner team, dropshippers without a brand, agencies, 3PLs, and affiliate operators. If that's you, we'll tell you, we won't pitch you, and we'll point you somewhere that fits better. The niche is narrow on purpose. Specialization is the moat.
What you get with Club: 8 years of hands-on context for e-commerce and international founders, $4.2M+ in cash recovered for paid-traffic e-com brands, $11M+ in tax saved, 100% audit-clean clients across every jurisdiction we've touched, and direct access you can't get from a Big-4 partner, because their billing model won't allow it.
Team
Currently: founder plus extended delivery team.
We are hiring a Head of Delivery to lead client engagement rhythm starting client #4 (event-trigger, not calendar-based). We are also hiring fractional specialists in compliance, transfer pricing, and cross-border tax as the book grows. If you have 5+ years senior accounting or fractional-CFO experience in DTC verticals and want to join a founder-led firm in Hong Kong or remote-friendly time zones, write to careers@hqcfo.com.
Why HQ CFO exists.
The usual finance setup for a $500K/mo DTC founder is four vendors who don't talk to each other. A bookkeeper doing reconciliations. A US CPA filing returns. A corp-law firm that set up the parent. An ad-rep arguing processor disputes when they come up. Four invoices, four contexts, and four hand-offs when something goes wrong.
The gaps between those four vendors are where the money sits. Rolling reserves the bookkeeper doesn't track. Section 174 catch-ups no one asked the CPA to check. Restructure options the corp-law firm only acts on when asked. Processor terms the ad-rep fixes after a dispute, not before the account gets flagged. Each vendor is good at their own job. None of them owns the whole rhythm.
HQ CFO is the one-vendor alternative. We handle strategic CFO work, accounting, tax planning, compliance, and corp-law routing under one engagement. We start with the recovery audit, because that's where the proof shows up fastest. We run the department, because that's where the leak gets sealed. Founder-led, because strategy calls only stay strategic when they aren't filtered through a partner.
Where we are
Hong Kong.
HQ CFO Limited is based in Hong Kong. We chose HK for three reasons. First, the time zone works for clients in the US, EU, and Asia-Pacific. HK morning overlaps US-Pacific evening and EU afternoon, so we can reach everyone. Second, the rules are clean for cross-border structuring: a wide treaty network, no exchange controls, and no withholding on most payments. Third, an HK Ltd is the right setup for a single-founder firm growing into a small team, without partnership-equity drag.
Most of the team works remote. Office address: Room #40, 10/F, Wah Hing Industrial Mansions, 36 Tai Yau St, San Po Kong, Hong Kong. Used for client meetings and the Sunday weekly review.
How we think
Four principles.
Specificity beats sophistication.
An $87,000 number on a 23-day timeline beats a "comprehensive financial transformation framework." A founder doesn't want a deck. They want the dollar amount, the deadline, and the action.
Compounding through compliance.
The brands that survive years of FTC ROSCA enforcement, tighter Visa VAMP limits, and processor de-risking are the ones that built compliance in from the start, not bolted it on later. We build it in.
The department, not the function.
Most CFO services optimize for the function (strategic CFO calls, monthly reports). We optimize for the department (CFO + accounting + tax + compliance + corp-law as one operating unit). The hand-offs between functions are where errors compound.
One contract.
If you have to call four people to find out where your cash is, you don't have a finance department. You have a vendor list. We're the consolidation play.