Level Up Your Finance Team: Building Process Maturity with Clarity and Ownership

Finance teams in growing businesses often rely on intuition and individual effort to keep things running smoothly. In the early days, that works. But as your business grows, so does its complexity, and the systems, roles, and habits that worked before start to feel stretched.

At some point, it becomes less about individual heroics and more about how your processes, ownership, and clarity keep the team moving forward. This isn’t about adding layers of red tape, it’s about giving people the clarity and tools to succeed as the business becomes more sophisticated.

Growth Outpaces Clarity

It’s a common story in SMEs. Finance keeps pace with hustle and goodwill, until it can’t anymore.

Here are some signs you’re at that tipping point:

• Finance tasks are done differently depending on who’s doing them, or worse, not done at all.

• You rely heavily on one or two people, and their holiday leave or resignation causes major issues.

• Recurring activities like month-end, payroll, and compliance happen—but always feel like a last-minute scramble.

So how do you address this?

Borrowed Wisdom: How an Engineering Model Transformed Our Finance Function

Years ago, during a dinner conversation with a family member who had spent decades leading major infrastructure and IT projects - and teaching project and risk management at Australia’s leading universities - I was introduced to the Capability Maturity Model (CMM).

Originally developed to assess software development processes, the CMM outlines how organisations mature their capabilities over five levels, from ad hoc heroics to continuous improvement.

At the time, I was hired by new owners to lead the finance function of an SME they had recently acquired. The business had outgrown its finance processes, which were struggling to keep up with its increasing complexity. The timing couldn’t have been better to apply this model.

Inspired by that dinner conversation, I decided to apply the CMM framework to our finance function and see how we could lift our processes, step by step.

Adapting the Capability Maturity Model to Finance

Here’s how the classic CMM levels translate to finance:

• Level 1: Initial (Ad Hoc): Things get done, but inconsistently and without documentation. Success depends on individual effort.

• Level 2: Repeatable: Processes follow a routine, but remain informal and undocumented.

• Level 3: Defined: Processes are documented, enabling consistency and smoother onboarding.

• Level 4: Managed: Metrics and checks are introduced to monitor process effectiveness.

• Level 5: Optimising: Continuous improvement becomes part of the team's DNA.

I sat down with my team and mapped out our finance processes - Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Payroll, Month-End Close, Reporting etc.- and assessed where each process sat on this maturity curve.

We ended up mapping out individual processes within functions, which was quite granular. But it can be broad, depending on your needs and stage of maturity. The key is to make it useful for your circumstances and be thoughtful about the level of detail.

Making It Visible - And Engaging

To bring the framework to life, we colour-coded each process by function and maturity level. Then we built a Trello Board, each card listed what needed to happen to lift the process to the next level.

This turned the idea of process maturity from an abstract concept into something visual and actionable. It also sparkled a bit of healthy competition: each team wanted their processes to “level up.”

Trello worked for us, but any collaborative tool, Microsoft Teams, Google Sheets, Notion, could achieve the same outcome.

A Practical Example: Accounts Payable Maturity Journey

Let’s take Accounts Payable (AP) as an example and see how it progresses through the maturity levels:

And to be clear, building maturity doesn’t mean layering on unnecessary bureaucracy. A process document doesn’t have to be a lengthy manual, it might be a one-page checklist or simple guideline, depending on the complexity of the task. The goal is practical clarity: enough structure to guide your team and create consistency, not an exercise in protecting yourself when things go wrong (which is too often the motivation in larger corporations).

• Level 1: Initial (Ad Hoc)

  • Invoices are received by whoever happens to check the mailbox or email.

  • There is no consistent process, each invoice is handled like a one-off.

  • Approval is ad hoc, based on whoever is available.

• Level 2: Repeatable

  • A routine emerges: invoices are paid on a regular basis.

  • Staff know roughly what to do, but the process is not written down.

  • Approvals happen, but criteria are inconsistent and reliant on individual memory.

• Level 3: Defined

  • The entire AP process is documented.

  • A PO (Purchase Order) policy outlines what invoices require a PO (e.g., utilities, anything under $1k exempted).

  • Approval matrices clearly define who can approve which POs.

  • New team members can follow the process without starting from scratch.

• Level 4: Managed

  • Metrics are introduced to measure the process: number of late payments, coding errors, invoices missing a PO, etc.

  • Exception reporting is used to track process compliance and identify training needs.

  • Regular reviews ensure controls are working and issues are addressed.

• Level 5: Optimising

  • The team proactively looks for automation opportunities to streamline or eliminate manual tasks.

  • Systems such as OCR invoice scanning, automated three-way matching, and integrated approval workflows are assessed and adopted where appropriate.

  • Continuous improvement reviews identify and implement further efficiencies.

The Impact: Continuously Improving Finance Function

The shift doesn’t happen overnight, but the difference is tangible. Your finance function is no longer dependent on hustle alone. It runs on structure, ownership, and continuous improvement.

Start Where You Are

If you’re an SME leader wondering where to start, don’t try to take your entire finance function to Level 5 in one go. Start by mapping what you have. Map a few critical processes and ask:

• Is this process documented?

• Is it performed consistently?

• Who owns it?

• How could it be improved?

And most importantly, share the journey with your team. Maturity isn’t something you build alone. It’s a team sport.

Want to See This in Action?

I’ve used a simple maturity mapping template with my teams to bring this to life. I’m in the process of creating a version that’s easy to adapt to different businesses. If you'd like to try it when it's ready, feel free to reach out.

Next in the series: How clear job design and process visibility keep your finance team aligned when things get busy, and how to avoid becoming the bottleneck yourself.

Akin Karaca