Your finance function should do more than close the books and file returns. What worked in the early stages often reaches its limits, and instead of supporting progress, it starts to slow everything down.
So how can you tell when it’s no longer fit for purpose? Below we’ve outlined five red flags that signal your finance function is in urgent need of transformation.
1. Reports Are Constantly Late or Contain Frequent Errors
When monthly management accounts arrive days (or even weeks) late, or reconciliation mistakes crop up regularly, it’s a clear sign your finance processes are failing. This isn’t just an administrative headache, it stops leadership from acting on accurate numbers when they need them most.
No surprise then that in 2025, 86% of UK finance leaders identified upgrading reporting and forecasting as a top priority to stay competitive.
2. Decisions Are Being Made Without Financial Insight
When big calls like expansion, capital allocation, or cost control are made without up-to-date financial input, the finance function is stuck playing catch-up. Instead of guiding strategy, it’s relegated to a back-office role. And that gap is widening: in 2025, 56% of CFOs put cost optimisation and data-driven decision-making at the very top of their priority list.
3. You Lack Forward Visibility or Scenario Planning
Relying on gut instinct or basic spreadsheets leaves you unprepared when the unexpected happens. In volatile markets, you need models that let you stress-test scenarios, not just static budgets. That urgency is reflected in Deloitte’s 2025 UK CFO survey, where 84% of leaders said they expect operating costs to rise in the year ahead, pushing many towards more agile and continuous planning.
4. You Can’t Afford or Attract Senior Finance Talent
As finance roles expand to cover compliance, regulation, automation, and stakeholder management, many organisations struggle to bring in the calibre of talent they need. Unsurprisingly, more than half of UK organisations said they plan to outsource or scale third-party finance support, with senior finance expertise among the most in demand.
Access to senior-level finance leadership doesn’t have to mean taking on a full-time hire. Outsourced Financial Controllers give scaling organisations the structure, oversight, and strategic input they’d otherwise struggle to secure.
5. Your Team Is Stuck on Low-Value Tasks
If your finance staff are spending hours on data entry, manual reconciliations, or chasing invoices, they can’t focus on the insights that matter. Modern finance functions are increasingly built on automation and cloud tools like Xero that strip out routine admin.
For scaling organisations, that gap is costly, but also avoidable. By moving to an outsourced finance model that already runs on streamlined systems, you bypass the burden of manual work and free your finance team (or controller) to focus on strategy.
Partnering for Smarter Finance Leadership
If these signs feel familiar, particularly if you’ve outgrown basic bookkeeping and need the discipline of a senior controller, it’s time to rethink how your finance function operates.
Sanay offers outsourced accounting, virtual bookkeeping, and remote Financial Controller solutions tailored for businesses of all sizes.
Get in touch with Sanay today to explore how your finance function can move from reactive to strategic.
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