These are what we see as the 4 key benefits of having a fractional FD/CFO rather than a full-time permanent member of staff:

Expertise – you will get someone who is not only a highly qualified finance expert, but someone who has a wealth of experience garnered from working in many businesses probably going through similar issues to your business. A full-time person has probably only worked in a handful of businesses and does not typically have that breadth or depth of commercial understanding earned working in many business environments.
Cost – The cost of hiring a fractional FD/CFO will vary depending very much on the time commitment you are looking for. That said, with a fractional FD/CFO you get deep financial expertise at a fraction of the cost of a full time person and without the other on-costs that come with employing a very senior person – notably, holidays, pension, company car, medical insurance etc. etc.; not to mention the redundancy costs accruing the longer they are with you which may crystallise at some point, for example, when you outgrow their skillset or experience.
Flexibility – If you are a business owner in need of financial expertise without the commitment of a full time FD/CFO, then perhaps the flexibility offered by a fractional FD/CFO could be for you. This way forward offers flexibility in delivery and also potential cost savings. The Tectona USP is that flexibility and scalability – we have easy in/easy out, dial up/dial down contracts so you can vary the time required as needed.
Scalability – one thing is certain, being in business is never straight forward and change goes with the territory. So, when you are going through a period of change it makes sense to have the sort of resource that you can readily flex to change with your changing circumstances; fractional roles do just that. And you can buy more time when you need it – simply dial up.

While we are at it, let’s face up to some of the jargon flying around and decode it:

What’s in a word?

While others might seek to dress this up as something very complicated, really it is not. And here’s why:

A ‘Finance Director’ (FD) is basically the same as a ‘Chief Financial Officer’ (CFO) – we will use the hybrid term “FD/CFO” meaning the same thing.
‘Part time’ means the same as ‘fractional’, or, indeed, ‘plural’ – we will keep up with the times and use the buzzy “fractional”.
‘Interim’ is usually doing something on a project basis – typically for a finite and limited time.

We have distilled our thinking down into a series of brief articles which, again at the risk of making assumptions, seek to address the questions that you will have about how best to manage your finance function – and if you are not asking these questions, then could we perhaps suggest that you should be asking them? Try these 3 articles for starters:

Don’t let your limited resources hamper the growth of your business. The benefits of working with a fractional FD/CFO are clear and with them as part of your management team you will be able to make informed decisions based on real data and, ultimately, be able to sleep easy at night knowing that that bit of the business that you may not fully understand is in safe hands.

About Tectona

Tectona Partnership helps business owners sleep at night by embedding one of our 18 commercially minded FD/CFOs in your management team.

Very often, a part time (or fractional) FD/CFO is the most effective solution.

We make sure you have the necessary management information and strategic insight to make informed decisions and reduce risk; and we will absolutely tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it.