Advantages of Hiring a Part-Time FD

Let’s start with the benefits of hiring a Finance Director (FD) in the first place.

Assistance

First and foremost an FD can provide help and assistance in running your business. As a business owner you may have found yourself involved in anything and everything, from HR to operations and to the finances.

An FD is there to work closely with the business owner or managing director and help make effective business decisions, provide support through external tax and legal issues, liaise with all levels of stakeholders and ensure any financial implications are taken into consideration at every point along the strategy.

Cash Management

An FD is responsible for managing the cash flow of the business, ensuring that problems, pinch points and opportunities are highlighted and resolved as early as possible. Helping factor in ‘what if’ scenarios of actions taken and ensuring you have sufficient ready cash to achieve your immediate targets.

An FD will be responsible for producing budgets, cash flow forecasts and project appraisals across the business.

Time

An FD can free you up from the day to day hassle as a business owner, allowing you to concentrate on the reason why you went into business in the first place, whether that’s innovation, focusing on key customers and driving new business. They can also look to free up time across the entire business. Analysing the business from top to bottom, looking for any inefficiencies which are costly not only in monetary value but also costly in time.

Growth

An FD can assist in the growth of a business, either through increased profitability or through mergers and acquisitions. Raising capital also becomes an important part of a Finance Directors role, enabling the success of the business to drive future growth.

Reporting

An FD’s role includes the accurate and timely presentation of information regarding operational and financial aspects of the business. This reporting should be a key driver to analysing performance and making decisions that are integral to achieving the strategy set out.

Scale

Systems and processes will be at the forefront of the role of an FD, allowing the business to increase scale without being detrimental to levels of control. These systems and processes should be aligned with bringing the business into the digital age, as part of HMRC’s digitisation programme.

An FD will also work with you to develop an effective and efficient finance function, allowing you to grow whilst maintaining essential levels of control, analysis and reporting.

And the difference between these benefits above and hiring a part-time FD:

Cost

You can have all the benefits that an FD brings as shown above for a fraction of the price, as these services can be offered on a part time basis as and when needed. The expertise and experience that an FD can bring can be aligned to the specific needs of the business at any one time, rather than incurring the costs of an FD on a full time basis when not necessarily required.

If a part time financial director is something your business would benefit from then please get in touch at the top of this page.