How to get the most out of your accounts team

Your accounts team is far more than just the numbers.

In many SMEs, the finance department quietly ticks along, producing month-end reports, chasing invoices and filing returns without anyone stopping to ask what else it could be doing for the business.

With the right direction, support, and culture, a good accounts team becomes one of the most valuable assets in your business. Here’s how to unlock that potential.

Trade time for technology

The technology available today is remarkable, and much of it is affordable, practical, and quick to implement, which could save your accounts team valuable time. Here are some examples.

• Automated bank reconciliation

• AI-powered invoice processing

• Real-time dashboards

• Cash flow forecasting tools

These are not reserved for large corporations with big IT budgets; they are readily available, yet many SME finance teams are unaware of them.

Give your accounts team time and encouragement to explore the tools available. Make it part of someone’s role to keep up with new developments and regularly review your current tools to assess whether there are better options or tasks that could be automated.

When the routine is handled by technology, your team are freed up to focus on the work that actually requires human thinking, analysis, judgment, and strategic input.

Put finance up front

One of the most common and costly mistakes is treating the accounts team as a back-office function separate from the rest of the business and consulting them only after decisions have been made, rather than before.

Business partnering turns this on its head and means your finance team actively engages with sales, operations and other departments, not just to report on what has happened, but to help shape what happens next.

A finance team member sitting in a sales meeting can flag a margin risk before a contract is signed or model the impact of different terms on cash flow before deals are made if they are involved in supplier negotiation.

This does not require a restructure; just an invitation. Bring your senior accountant into leadership meetings, ask them to present the numbers in plain English and to offer an opinion, not just a figure.

Let the rest of the team know that finance is there to help them make better decisions, not just to police their spending. Over time, this shift in culture pays dividends. The business makes better decisions, finance feels more engaged, and everyone starts to see the numbers as a tool rather than a chore.

Invest in development

A finance team that stops learning gradually becomes a liability. Tax rules change, accounting standards evolve, and technology moves fast. The commercial skills needed to add real value, like data analysis, financial storytelling, and strategic thinking, require ongoing development.

Training budgets for finance teams in many SMEs are minimal, and CPD (continuing professional development) is treated as something people do in their own time on their own terms.

Investing in your team’s development shows that you value them, which drives engagement and retention and helps your business stay current, compliant, and capable. Whether that is technical training, a course in financial modelling, or something as simple as attending an industry event, the return is almost always worth it.

Ask your team what they feel they need to do their jobs better. You may be surprised by both the quality of their answers and how modest the cost of acting on them turns out to be.

Support your Senior Accountant with FD-level mentoring

Many growing businesses have a capable and trusted senior accountant at the heart of their finance function who knows the business inside out, keeps things running, and whom the leadership team relies on. But there is often a gap between what they are doing and what the business needs.

Skills such as:

• Strategic financial leadership

• Structuring a fundraising round

• Redesigning a pricing model

• Building an investor-ready set of projections

• Driving a cost transformation programme

Develop through very specific experience and are not reasonable expectations of someone who has come up through bookkeeping and management accounts, no matter how talented they are.

This is where a fractional FD can make a significant difference by working alongside your senior accountant to provide mentoring, challenge, and a higher level of strategic thinking, without replacing them.

Think of it as equipping your team with a capability they do not currently have, rather than criticising the one they do. The senior accountant grows, the business benefits, and the FD relationship often costs a fraction of what a full-time hire would.

Focus your team on work that adds value

Not everything your accounts team does is equally valuable. Some tasks exist because they always have, not because they genuinely serve the business.

A useful exercise is to map out how your team spends its time, then ask for each activity: Is this adding real value? Could it be done less frequently, more efficiently, or not at all?

You will usually find a mixture of valuable work, like analysis, forecasting, financial challenge, reporting that drives decisions, and activity that is purely administrative, duplicative, or a long-standing process that nobody has thought to question.

The goal is to gradually shift the balance by automating or streamlining low-value tasks, freeing up time for high-value ones.

Encourage your team to think of themselves not as processors of transactions but as providers of financial insight. The practical result of this shift is a finance team that genuinely helps the business grow, rather than one that is perpetually busy but not moving the needle.

Cut costs that aren’t paying off

In a growing business, costs accumulate quietly, whether it’s a subscription nobody uses, an agency retained out of habit, or a report that takes three days to produce and nobody reads. These things have a way of becoming part of the furniture and never being examined.

Your accounts team are the ideal people to lead a regular, honest assessment. For every cost, ask if it is adding value; if the answer is no or uncertain, it is worth discussing whether it can be cut.

This applies to internal processes as much as external spend. Are there tasks the team carries out that serve no real purpose? Are there reports produced weekly that could be monthly, or monthly ones that could be quarterly?

Eliminating waste - of money and time - isn’t about cutting corners, it’s about making sure every resource in the business is working as hard as it can.

A fractional FD brings a useful outside perspective to this exercise. Because they are not close to the day-to-day, they can see the big picture in a way that is difficult for those inside the business.

Adding it all up

The accounts team in most SMEs is capable of contributing more than it currently does. That is not a criticism; it is simply a reflection that, without the right direction, support, and structure, finance functions default to the familiar basics of compliance, reporting, and keeping the wheels turning.

With a little deliberate leadership, the same team can become an engine of business performance, driving smarter decisions, identifying opportunities, eliminating waste, and helping the business grow with confidence.

A fractional FD can be the catalyst for that transformation: providing the strategic lens, mentoring, and senior financial thinking that elevate the whole function.

Get in touch to learn how a fractional FD can turn your accounts team into a growth engine for your business.