Many small growing companies do not have a Financial Director, but need support in order to develop their businesses. This is often the type of support that their Auditors / Accountants are unable to provide.
These companies need someone who can be part of their management team, but is not going to cost them at £70 -£100K a year in salary!
Two reasons we do not see it happen very often are that MDs may not recognise the value that a part time financial support can bring and, if they do, finding a good one is more difficult than it should be.
The idea behind the term ‘Virtual’ is that you can call upon someone when needed! The can be on site or available remotely.
The role can be either a part-time basis. Say 3 days per month, or when required. For example when your company has a short term project, such as raising funding.
Responsibilities could be:
- Financial performance measurement
- Management accounts and key performance indicators
- Forecasting and budgeting
- Business planning
2. Day to day financial control
- credit control
- cashflow management
- bookkeeping, payroll, VAT
- financial and business systems
3. Relationships with third parties
- banks
- investors
- HMRC
- accountants and tax advisors
Finding the right person and agreeing the scope of the role are perhaps the most difficult challenges for MDs looking for help in this field. After all, most people have never recruited a senior Accountant before!
Is this Cost Effective?
Over time the expert resource builds up a vast working knowledge of the business and becomes a very valuable sounding board for important decisions and it’s in this capacity that most value is added going forward. A daily rate of between £400 – £600 per day, with no employee contract commitments much be a cost effective for an small company looking for support.