How to Set Up a Finance Function That Grows With You

Why Every Growing Business Needs to Rethink Its Finance Function

Running a business without a proper finance function is like driving a car with no dashboard, it’s fine until you hit traffic, bad weather, or try to overtake someone. That’s exactly what happens when businesses grow but don’t evolve their internal finance systems.

Whether you’re hitting £500k or just crossed the £2M turnover mark, your business needs more than bookkeeping and a once-a-year tax return. You need a finance engine. People, processes, and tools that give you clarity, control, and the confidence to make smarter decisions.

Let’s break down what that looks like, and more importantly, what happens if you don’t build it in time.

What Is a Finance Function, Really?

A finance function isn’t one person. It’s the ecosystem that handles your business’s financial health, covering compliance, operations, forecasting, decision support, and strategy.

It should help you:

• Know what’s coming in and out (cash flow)

• Understand what’s making you profit (or not)

• Plan for investment, hiring, tax and growth

• Stay compliant with VAT, payroll, and HMRC

What Happens If You Don’t Build One

When finance isn’t treated as a core function, your business makes decisions in the dark. That means you hire too soon, underprice your services, or run out of cash even though the P&L shows a "profit."

You can’t grow what you can’t measure. And you can’t measure what you don’t track.

Over time, this leads to one of three outcomes:

1. Growth stalls due to lack of financial confidence

2. You scale unsustainably and hit a cash crisis

3. You get blindsided by tax, payroll, or funding problems

   
   
   
   

Why Founders Leave It Too Late (And Pay the Price)

Most founders don’t think about building a finance function until they’re overwhelmed. It starts small: a few late invoices, a forgotten VAT return, or not understanding why your margins are suddenly shrinking.

By the time finance becomes urgent, it’s usually because something’s gone wrong. And reactive fixes are always more expensive than proactive design.

Business Impact of Delaying

Let’s say you’ve just hired two new team members based on gut feel. But your cash flow forecast, if you had one it would’ve shown that Q3 is a historically tight quarter.

Now payroll’s due, receivables are delayed, and you’re staring at an emergency loan.

Without forward-looking finance, you’re flying with no radar. And growth turns from exciting to dangerous.

What a Scalable Finance Function Looks Like

A finance function should scale with your business, from startup to £5M+. It’s not about hiring a finance team all at once. It’s about building the right layers at the right time.

a) Clear Ownership

Someone needs to own finance. This might start with a founder and evolve into a part-time accountant, then a fractional FD. What matters is that someone has accountability, not just for doing the work, but for interpreting it.

Without it? Financial oversight becomes everyone’s job and nobody’s responsibility.

Impact: Decisions get delayed or made on instinct. When things go wrong, no one can explain the numbers or spot patterns in time.

b) Smart Systems That Integrate

Invest early in tools like Xero, QuickBooks or Sage for receipt capture. These tools talk to each other, automate repetitive tasks, and give you real-time data.

Without it? You rely on spreadsheets and memory. Mistakes happen. Reconciliations take days. Reports are inaccurate, and leaders stop trusting the numbers.

Impact: Lost confidence in reporting. Delayed decisions. You burn team time and miss growth windows while fixing things manually.

c) Monthly Management Rhythm

Every growing business should run on a monthly cadence:

• Management accounts

• Cash flow forecasting

• Budget vs actual review

• Finance meeting with leadership

  
  

This is how great companies stay agile. You’ll spot issues earlier, correct course faster, and make informed decisions consistently.

Without it? You’re working off outdated info. You find out too late that you’ve overspent, that profits are down, or that customer profitability has shifted.

Impact: Surprise losses. Avoidable overdrafts. Bad hires. Missed targets. And a reactive, stressed-out leadership culture.

d) Documented Roles & Responsibilities

It’s not enough to hope your team “just knows” what to do. As you grow, your finance tasks need to be assigned, systemised, and tracked, from invoice follow-ups to payroll runs.

Without it? Invoices go unchased. VAT deadlines sneak up. Payroll becomes a monthly scramble. Even worse, the same tasks get done by two people, or nobody.

Impact: Missed income. Late payments. Reputational risk. Overwork and burnout from poor delegation.

What Startups Should Do (From Day One)

If you’re early stage, don’t overbuild. But build smart.

• Use one cloud accounting platform and connect your bank

• Automate receipt capture and set up repeating invoices

• Track cash in/out weekly, not quarterly

• Hire a part-time accountant who helps you see around corners

  
  

Why it matters: This is your foundation. Early mistakes become expensive habits. Get this right, and your future finance team will thank you.

What Scaling Businesses Need to Level Up

Once you’re past £1M–£2M, the finance function becomes strategic. You can’t wing it anymore.

• Bring in a finance lead or part-time FD

• Build rolling 12-month forecasts

• Create a dashboard for weekly KPI tracking

• Review profitability by customer, product, or project

  
  

Why it matters: This is when finance stops being “admin” and starts being your secret weapon. You can simulate scenarios, justify big hires, raise funding, or invest with confidence.

How Jones Financial Accounts (JFA) Can Help

At JFA, we build finance functions that scale with you.

For startups, we set the foundation. For growing businesses, we build systems that give your leadership team data, clarity and control. For scale-ups, we provide Fractional FD support, bringing strategic finance to the table.

Here’s what working with us looks like:

✅ Your books done accurately, on time

✅ Monthly management accounts and commentary

✅ Custom cash flow forecast tools

✅ Budget planning and scenario support

✅ Quarterly finance strategy meetings

✅ Always-on support, we're part of your team

We understand what it's like to grow fast. We'll help you get ahead of the numbers, before they get ahead of you.

Book a free finance health check today

Wrapping up today's insights, tomorrow we simplify another accounting challenge.