I'm a Fractional Finance Director working with owner-managed businesses and purpose-led organisations. There's a point in most businesses where the finances stop keeping up with ambition. The numbers exist but can't be trusted or acted on. Or the numbers are broadly fine, but the business is moving into more complex territory, perhaps a period of growth, a potential sale or attracting investment. The numbers tell you what happened. The reasons sit elsewhere, in how the business wins work, how it prices, how it delivers, and how decisions get made. That's what I'm looking at from day one.
Fractional Finance Director · Buckinghamshire & Thames VAlley
The numbers land every month.
But do you know what's driving them?
“I have the reports and the accounts. What I don't have is the full picture.”
“I’m too busy running the business to see where it's going.”
“I know something's wrong. I just can't see what.”
Nobody to turn to?
In the Dark?
You check the bank balance to know if there's enough cash. The management accounts arrive late, and when they do, you're not sure you trust them. Hiring decisions, pricing calls, bids you walk away from rely on gut feel, because the numbers aren't telling you what you need.
The business got more complex; the finance function didn't keep up. Your accountant handles year-end but nobody is connecting the financial strategy to where the business is going.
It might be a finance function problem, the basics not in place, control accounts are not balancing, unreliable management accounts or reports which don’t answer the question and nobody believes anyway. Or it might be something else entirely, how you win work, how you price it, what's happening to margin. Staying inside the finance function, you can describe the symptoms. Getting to the cause means looking across the whole business.
There’s no-one to ask about why margin is decreasing, or whether the growth you're chasing is making you better off, or what happens to cash if your biggest client leaves tomorrow. Your accountant can tell you what happened last year. Your bookkeeper knows what's in the bank. That's not the same thing.
You may feel:
Isolated, carrying the financial responsibility alone, with nobody in your corner
Time-poor, too focused on the day-to-day to think ahead
Stuck in the fog, without the clarity to make confident decisions
What you don't have is someone who makes the connections, translates numbers into decisions, and gets to the root cause.
You don't need a Finance Director five days a week. You need one on the days that matter.
What is a Fractional FD?
Senior finance, on the days you need it.
An FD in your corner. Without the full-time hire.
A Fractional Finance Director works across a small number of businesses simultaneously, a few days a month in each, not five days a week in one.
You get the full experience and decision support of a Finance Director, sitting in your leadership meetings, owning the numbers, challenging the decisions that matter.
But without the full-time salary, employer's NI, pension contributions, and the risk of a permanent hire who turns out to be the wrong fit.
Most owner-managed businesses don't need an FD every day. They need one on the days that count. That's what fractional means in practice.
The Approach
Six Dimensions, Not One.
Whether the starting point is the management accounts, a cash flow problem, or something less defined, the questions I'm asking from day one cover not just the finance function but the whole business, how it wins work, how it prices, how it delivers, and how decisions get made. The things that are costing you money rarely sit where you expect them to.
Find out more about my Business Mapping Review →
01 Financials
Are the numbers accurate, timely, and useful? Can you explain last month's performance without opening a spreadsheet?
02 Commercial
Do you know which clients and services are genuinely profitable? Could you say right now what your actual margin is on your five largest clients?
03 Governance
Are decisions clear, owned, and accountable? When was the last time a decision fell through the cracks because nobody owned it?
04 Operations
Does the business run consistently when you're not watching? Are key processes documented, or do they live in people's heads?
05 Risk & Control
What could go wrong, and is it managed? Are your financial controls strong enough that you'd spot a problem before it became a crisis?
06 Strategy & Leadership
Where is the business going, and is the team aligned around it? When did you last step back and genuinely think about where it's heading?
The Shape of the Work
The Work I Do.
Most client relationships begin with a diagnostic. From there, the work takes one of two forms, a scoped project or an ongoing retained relationship.
Retained Engagement
A few days a month, embedded in the business. I'm there for the leadership meetings, the monthly numbers, the commercial decisions, the cash flow conversations. Between visits I'm available, a phone call or an email away when something needs a response before the next visit.
Part-time in presence, not in commitment.
Find out more about Retained Engagements →
Project Work
A defined piece of work with a clear output. Three potential starting points:
-
A focused assessment of the finance function, management accounts, controls, cash visibility. Same structured approach as the Business Mapping Review, narrower scope.
Start here when you know the issue is in the numbers.
-
A structured couple of days in the business looking across all six dimensions of the Business Review Mapping model. Written report within a week. Where the business sits, what to fix first, and what good looks like. No retainer, no commitment beyond the review itself.
Start here when you know something isn't working but can't pinpoint where.
-
Some businesses arrive with a clear brief, a specific piece of analysis, a finance function that needs building, or an immediate need for ongoing senior support. If you know what you need, we can start there.
Start here when the situation is already clear.
Find out more about Project Work →
Evidence. Not Claims.
What this looks like in practice.
£41m
Business Sale AT P/E 20
Commercial finance partner to the MD for ten years. The business sold at a P/E of 20.
£500k
Turnaround
Near-zero cash. No management accounts. Fundamental controls missing. Eight months later, £500k in reserves.
Clean Exit
No Post Completion Adjustments
Vendor-side FD on a VC-backed trade sale. The numbers were tested hard. They held.
£1m
Fraud Detection
Applied probability modelling to client transaction data. Spotted a pattern nobody else had seen. Saved £1m.
£4m
Margin Improvement
Nobody knew which clients were profitable. Rebuilt the reporting bottom-up. £4m of recoverable gross profit became visible for the first time.
IN THEIR WORDS
Recommendations
Let’s have a conversation
No agenda, no obligation. Just a chance to talk about where your business is and whether I can help.