As Finance professionals, at EFM we’re experienced individuals delivering expertise that is critical to help businesses work efficiently, stay compliant, and grow.
The overall outcome is down to many individuals working together in a team to maximise the contribution made by each of their respective skill sets to the final result.

If your business is seeking support with Finance and financial management from an interim Finance Director or similar, it’s important to stop and think whether, in reality, a person or a team is the best choice for the outcomes you wish to achieve – and for the budget you have available to spend.

Here are a few pointers to help you decide.

Teamwork – many heads solve more problems

One very compelling benefit of working with any kind of team, Finance included, is that many brains are better than one – and this has been scientifically proven. According to one researcher at the University of Illinois, small teams “outperform the best individuals” and “generate and adopt correct responses, reject erroneous responses, and effectively process information.”

Sharing ideas, contributing thoughts, and cooperating on tasks – staple features of team behaviour – extracts maximum value from each individual’s expertise, and this, in turn, increases the likelihood of optimum outcomes.

De-risking - teams give you options

Another reason teams are important to your business is that they bring multiple and often overlapping skills that can protect you from the risks inherent in a key individual leaving the organisation, becoming sick, or going on holiday.

An outsourced Finance team, for example, can typically bring an extensive range of skills to the table – including, for example, not only FD duties, but also those of bookkeepers, credit controllers, growth advisors, business mentoring and business coaching specialists, tax consultants, and more.

It all adds up to more skills availability, which means substantially less interruption to your business should you need to replace or supplement the skill set of a departing individual.

Skills, coverage, costs - a team can trump an individual

Consider a common scenario we encounter at EFM: a client requests an interim FD for a specific finance project, such as rolling out a financial system. Often, we can break down the role into specific tasks and bring in a small team of specialists to handle them. This approach improves the quality of the output by allowing specialists to focus on their areas of expertise rather than relying on a generalist to cover everything.

Additionally, this method often delivers cost benefits. For instance, paying an FD to handle bookkeeping tasks means paying their higher day rate for that time. However, if a bookkeeper within the team handles those tasks, you pay a lower rate for bookkeeping while keeping the FD focused on higher-value activities. This cost efficiency extends beyond bookkeeping to other tasks that can be managed by junior team members rather than more senior, higher-paid individuals.

The Right Person, The Right People

In summary, while an outsourced finance resource needs the right individual leading it, sometimes the real question is not just who you need in the prime position but who you need supporting, supplementing, reinforcing, and complementing them—and what that will cost.

For optimal results, consider the team. Get the right fit for your outsourced finance needs—get in touch with us today.