Sally Farrant
Specialism: Finance
As a Fractional Finance Director, I help service businesses make decisions confidently and grow sustainably using budgets, cash flow forecasts, board reporting and strategic financial guidance, without the cost of a full time Finance Director.
About
If you have never worked with a Fractional Finance Director, here is what it means and how I can help.
What does a Fractional Finance Director do?
A Finance Director sits above your bookkeeper and accountant and turns your numbers into decisions – telling you what the figures actually mean for the business and what to do next. “Fractional” (or part-time) simply means you get that senior expertise for a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire, scaled to what you need.
What can a Fractional Finance Director help you with?
The value is not in producing more numbers – anyone can do that now. It is in interpreting them, spotting what is wrong and deciding what to do about it. I help with situations like:
- Planning for growth and working out what you can realistically afford
- Making cost-cutting or redundancy decisions when work dips, based on facts rather than guesswork
- Driving profitability – finding what is making money and what is dragging it down
- Deciding whether, and when, you can afford a senior hire
- Preparing for and presenting to a board with numbers you can stand behind
- Verifying and interpreting AI-generated financial reporting – anyone can ask Copilot or Claude for a report, but you need someone who can check it is right and tell you what it actually means
What is the difference between a Finance Director and a management accountant?
A management accountant or bookkeeper produces the numbers – the reports, the budgets, the month-end. A Finance Director interprets them: what they mean for the business, where the risks and the opportunities are, and what to do next. If you already get reports but no-one is telling you what to do with them, that is the gap a Finance Director fills.
What size of business needs a Fractional Finance Director, and when?
Typically an established service business that has outgrown DIY finances but is not yet big enough, or busy enough, to justify a full-time FD. You have a bookkeeper on the day-to-day and an accountant filing the year-end returns, but no-one interpreting the numbers commercially or helping you plan ahead. A fractional FD gives you that senior input for a day or two a month, scaled up or down as you need it, so you only pay for what the business actually requires.
What areas do you not cover?
I focus on traditional Finance Director work around interpreting data and making decisions about profitability, recruitment, cost-cutting and presenting that data to your Board.
I do not cover investment raises, IPO’s or fundraising.
Who do you work best with?
Service businesses – professional services, consultancies, agencies and healthcare – where cash flow and profitability sit at the heart of every decision. I am a CIMA-qualified accountant with 25 years of finance experience inside organisations including Channel 4, Guinness World Records and Philips Electronics.
Specialisms
- Fractional Finance Director support for growing service businesses
- Cash flow forecasting and planning to aid decision-making – when to hire, spend or hold
- Clear budget setting and management, with monthly tracking against plan
- Profitability analysis – what is driving profit and what is dragging it down
- Scenario and what-if planning to weigh up big decisions before you commit
- Strategic financial guidance for growth, cost-cutting and hiring decisions
- Board pack preparation and board meeting attendance
- Finance function leadership – structure, processes and oversight of your bookkeeper and accountant
- Interpreting and verifying AI-generated financial reporting (Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT)
- CIMA-qualified Finance Director with 25 years’ experience (Channel 4, Guinness World Records, Philips Electronics)
Case studies
A board that trusts the numbers again
When this charity’s previous Finance Director left, the board had lost confidence in the numbers. Their parting summary was: “I don’t really know what the position is, but it’s worse than you think.”
I got to the bottom of the real financial position, rebuilt the reporting from the ground up and gave the board numbers they could rely on, explained in plain English, while supporting them through a restructure. Three months later the board trusted the numbers again and decisions that had stalled could finally move forward.
“Sally is brilliant – she brings sanity and clout to our finances.”
A plan to work a three-day week
A service business founder wanted to drop to a three-day week within three years. Stepping back meant an £80,000 senior hire that felt impossible to afford, and because the founder’s own pay came quietly through dividends, the true cost of running the business was hidden.
I built a three-year plan and modelled the options honestly: what the business would need to look like to afford the hire, and whether the goal was realistic at current revenue. The founder now has a clear, achievable plan rather than just a hope.
If you want a clearer financial picture and someone to help your organisation make confident decisions, send me a message using the contact form below.
