Who Does What in an SME Finance Team?

As businesses grow, the lines around “who does what” in the finance function start to blur. Many SMEs begin with a part-time bookkeeper and eventually need a CFO-level finance leader, but the messy middle is where things get tricky.

Most SME finance teams aren’t built from a grand plan, they evolve reactively. One pain point at a time: “We need to get paid faster.” “Our BAS is overdue.” “The bank wants a forecast.” It’s understandable. But over time, this patchwork approach turns into a liability.

This article offers a practical guide to understanding the key roles in a growing finance team, so you can scale with intention.

The Two Pillars of Finance

To make sense of the roles, it helps to think of finance as having two distinct pillars: Controllership and Finance Business Partnering. They represent distinct, yet complementary functions and getting both right is essential.

Controllership focuses on financial reporting, compliance, and internal controls, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of financial data. This is the backbone of your finance function. Typical roles include:

• Transactional Functions: Payable, Receivable, Billing Officers

• General Accounting & Compliance: Bookkeepers, Financial Accountants, Payroll Officers, Financial Controllers

Finance Business Partnering, on the other hand, is about strategy, planning and decision support. It connects finance to business performance and future direction. This is where insight lives. It’s what helps you plan, invest, and adapt. Typical roles include:

• Analytical Functions: FP&A - various specialised analyst roles, Project Accountants, Management Accountants

• Advisory functions: Finance Business Partners, Commercial Finance Managers

In larger businesses, each of these roles might sit in separate departments. In SMEs, they're often combined into hybrid roles, but the distinction between these pillars still matters. They solve different problems and require different skill sets.

Typical SME Path: From Bookkeeper to CFO

So how do these roles usually take shape in an SME? In many SMEs, the finance function grows like this: a bookkeeper handles the day-to-day. As the business expands, transactional staff join; accounts payable, receivable and billing, payroll, and maybe a part-time management accountant. Eventually, a Finance Manager is brought in to “take over the numbers.” Finally, a CFO level finance leader or external advisor is brought in to help link finance to strategy.

It’s a natural path, however not always a smooth one.

Sometimes, a Finance Manager is expected to be a strategic advisor. Sometimes, a CFO is hired too early and is expected to roll up their sleeves and run payroll. The result? Frustration, blurry expectations, and a business that can’t quite get out of the weeds. Leaders staying too close to the numbers because they don’t trust what they’re getting, and no one else is looking ahead.

It’s important to understand that the process is not about getting the titles right. It’s about matching capabilities to complexity.

A Common Mistake: Reaching for Tools Before Structure

Founders are smart and resourceful, but most aren’t finance professionals. And as the business grows, they reach a point where:

• Systems and spreadsheets that used to work no longer scale

• Financial insight is missing from key decisions

• The business is too big to fly blind, but too small to build a full finance department

This is where risk increases, not just financially, but operationally.

And that's when the B2B salespeople start showing up, with promises of “solutions”: software subscriptions, dashboards, ERPs, AI. These tools might help... eventually. But without the right structure in place, they often create more noise than clarity.

I once worked with a small architecture firm - just a handful of employees - that had been sold a project management platform designed for much larger practices. The implementation cost a lot of money and was overly complex and impractical to use. In the end, a well-designed spreadsheet would’ve done the job better.

What You Really Need: A Finance Architect

Before you buy new tools or hire your next team member, take a step back and look at the big picture. What you really need is a blueprint, something that connects where your business is today with where it's heading.

That’s where a finance architect comes in. Someone who can assess your current setup and design a structure that fits the complexity of your business. Not just to fix today’s pain points, but to build a system that keeps the business compliant, delivers meaningful insight, links daily operations to business strategy, and scales with the business as it grows.

This might be a part-time CFO, an external consultant, or an experienced finance lead already in your team. The title doesn’t matter—the thinking does.

Key Takeaway: Structure Before Scale

Don’t wait for growing pains to dictate your hiring decisions. A finance function isn’t merely a cost centre, it’s your decision-making engine.

Map your building blocks. Clarify who does what. And then you can:

• Delegate with confidence

• Invest in the right skills

• Focus your time where it really matters

And perhaps most importantly, you avoid building a team that’s working hard, but still flying blind.

Up Next: In our next article, we’ll explore ownership and delegation, and some tools to help spread financial responsibility across your growing business while maintaining control.

Akin Karaca