Andrew Knott
I have led finance teams for many years — most recently as Group Finance Director of an international publishing and art business, and before that as CFO of a large wine distributor.
Over the last two years I have spent a great deal of my own time learning to build the tools I always wanted as a finance leader — forecasting models, reporting platforms, automated reconciliations. Not because I want to be a developer, but because it turns out the gap between knowing exactly what finance needs and being able to build it has become much narrower than it used to be.
Finance that keeps up with the business
Month-end that arrives on time
Most businesses I work with have outgrown their financial processes. The management accounts arrive three weeks after month-end, the forecast is rebuilt by hand each time, the business commentary is weak. I work with a small number of SMEs as a fractional CFO to fix that — forecasting, monthly reporting and the commentary that makes it useful, delivered on time and at a cost that suits the size of the business.
Less time lost to spreadsheets
And month-end is only part of it. Between closes, the spreadsheets take over — reconciliations that never quite tie, ad hoc reports rebuilt from scratch each time, the same figures rekeyed between systems that don't communicate. Most of it can be automated. What that buys you isn't a cost saving so much as a finance team with the time to be useful.
- ACA Chartered Accountant
- ACMA Chartered Management Accountant
- CTA Chartered Tax Adviser