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What Is An Interim Financial Manager?
An interim Financial Manager is someone you recruit for a short period of time to add resources and skills to your financial management regime. They are self starting and come with wide-ranging abilities. They are able to work at many levels, from Finance Director to Book-keeper.
Unlike management consultants from large practices who observe and make a report on what they think you should do, interim managers "roll up their sleeves" and implement their solutions in conjunction with your own thinking. Practice Consultants usually follow the their own prescriptive methods and are focused on achieving the partners objectives as much as helping you. An interim manager becomes a member of your team working with you when you require it and is loyal to your business objectives. They can be full time or part time and often work on an intermittent or retainer basis.
The part time and intermittent flexibility of hiring an interim means you can afford to hire expertise that you couldn't normally afford, or maybe not even fully utilise on a full time long-term basis. Their skill base is often greater than the immediate requirement and can make an impact quickly.
Employees often get preoccupied with their rights and employers obligations, stress and work/life balance, even work distribution and fair pay but often forget to assess their value to the business. Interims aren't concerned with such issues, they aim to be above the office politics, see what needs doing, implement change, deliver results providing value for money and real worth. It's the only way for them to gain a good reputation and further work, by repeat business or referrals. Interims offer great value for money.
Sometimes management teams get bogged down with their thinking, even those that work well together. Introducing an interim manager can act as a temporary pivot around which new ideas can be developed and bad ones properly dispensed with. When the need to implement change is satisfied you're not left with a new obstacle to further change, or the financial demands that a permanent addition to the team might bring.
The headline daily rate for an interim sometimes seems high compared to a salaried employee. Part of this is the shift in employers national insurance burden and the limit to the number of days in a year an interim can earn (223). On a like for like basis the daily rate for an interim will appear 27% more expensive. The rest (if there is any) is the premium of having flexible focused skills, but you're only paying for it when you require it.
Interims typically charge on a daily basis although hourly arrangements can apply. Invoicing is usually through a Limited Company, so there are no payroll complexities. Contracts can be as short or as long as you mutually agree. If you are a VAT exempt company you will need to remember that most interims will be VAT registered and charge VAT. You shouldn't employee an interim whose taxable status is "self employed" on an invoice basis, they should be treated as employees for tax and NI purposes, otherwise you will have a large bill from HMRC at some time in the future!
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