Get the basics right

Firstly, business leaders need to go back to basics when it comes to looking at their finance teams, you need to walk before you can run. It’s important to understand that one person can’t do multiple roles. A CFO involved in financial planning and strategic leadership will not also have bandwidth for day-to-day accounts management and bookkeeping. So what does your business need? Should you be looking at hiring a CFO? Or do you need a Financial Controller? Or do you need someone to support with more transactional work or payroll, like a Bookkeeper.

It can be difficult to understand the differences between all of these roles, and as a growing business, the reality is that you probably need someone who can do a mixture of all of these things. It’s hard to get that through one employee alone and you may not be at the stage where you can resource a fully operational in-house finance team.

EXECUTIVE/C-LEVEL FINANCIAL ROLES

Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Finance Director (FD): Strategic leaders in a finance function, overseeing financial team operations and reporting, financial planning, risk management, long term financial health.

SENIOR OPERATIONAL ROLES

Financial Controller, Head of Finance, etc: Mix of strategic and operational duties, manages day-to-day accounting processes and finance functions, ensures compliance, cash flow, etc.

MID-LEVEL AND SPECIALIST ROLES

Financial Manager, Tax Manager, Internal Auditor, etc: Focus on a specific financial area.

ENTRY-LEVEL AND SUPPORT ROLES

Management Accountant, Financial Accountant, Accounts Payable/ Receivable Clerk, Bookkeeper, Junior Finance Analyst, Payroll Manager: Usually appointed in larger/growing finance teams handling more transactions and reporting.

Addressing the talent skills gap

Even once you know which role you need to fill, there is a big skills gap in the financial services industry, with professionals being hard to find, expensive, and challenging to retain. It can be especially difficult for smaller businesses to compete in the talent wars, making it even more challenging to get the right experts in to your business. So even when you decide you need to hire someone for a specific role, it can take months to find the right person – but hiring the wrong person can have much more serious consequences, so recruitment is not something to be rushed. Outsourcing helps reduce the strain so that you can focus on your business, in the knowledge that your company’s finances and administration is in safe hands.

Mitigating risk and financial pressures

Finally, there’s no denying that recruiting is more expensive than ever before, with rising business costs like National Insurance all impacting the bottom line. The cost of working with a recruitment agency can also add 20% of first year salary on top. Financial pressures can cause people gaps within a business, especially if you need to hire quickly. Outsourcing your finance team can have significant cost savings.

That’s not to say that businesses shouldn’t be hiring in-house financial professionals – they are invaluable and of course as a business scales it needs a mature finance team to help drive operations forward. When we work with businesses, we like to be seen as part of the team – working closely with in-house professionals and understanding what is going on now as well as plans for the future.

But when a business is facing certain pressure points and is struggling to hire the right people, Outsourcing your finance team with Menzies can help you fill multiple financial roles quickly. From easing operational pressures, to offering longer term value, Menzies can step in and start doing the work from day one. It also provides the flexibility to change resources and costs as business needs change over time.

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