Interim Finance Manager

Interim Finance Manager - £50,000–£60,000 + Benefits - Greater Manchester Do you have experience working in a consultancy, recruitment or other people-led service business? Are you a hands-on Finance Manager who enjoys understanding what is really driving performance, rather than simply producing the numbers? We’re partnering with an ambitious, entrepreneurial consultancy business that has grown successfully while maintaining a close-knit, people-focused culture. They are now looking for a commercially minded Finance Manager to take ownership of the day-to-day finance function and play an increasingly important role as the business continues to scale. This is not a role for someone who wants to produce a set of monthly accounts and simply hand them over. You’ll be supported by an Accounts Assistant, but you’ll remain close enough to the detail to genuinely understand what is happening within the business. At the same time, you’ll work closely with the leadership team, providing meaningful financial information, improving processes and helping them make better commercial decisions. What will you be doing? You’ll take ownership of the monthly management accounts process, ensuring that reporting is accurate, timely and genuinely useful to the people running the business. Alongside this, you’ll: Develop management information and KPI reporting around revenue, gross profit, performance, costs and profitability. Provide commentary and commercial insight rather than simply reporting historic figures. Manage cashflow, working capital and forecasting. Oversee the balance sheet and maintain appropriate financial controls. Support budgeting, forecasting and wider business planning. Review existing finance processes and identify ways to make them more efficient, robust and scalable. Improve the quality and visibility of financial reporting as the business grows. Support and oversee the Accounts Assistant. Work closely with operational teams to understand performance and provide practical financial support. Become increasingly involved in wider commercial projects and business decisions. The emphasis is very much on combining strong management accounting fundamentals with commercial curiosity and a willingness to improve how things are done. What are we looking for? You’ll already have strong experience in management accounts and be comfortable owning month-end. Just as importantly, you’ll enjoy getting under the skin of a business. You’ll probably be someone who can happily get into the detail when required, but who can also step away from the spreadsheet and explain what the numbers actually mean to non-finance colleagues. Experience within recruitment, consultancy, staffing or another people-led professional services environment would be particularly useful, although it isn’t essential for the right person. You’re likely to bring: Strong management accounting experience. A good understanding of cashflow, balance sheets and financial controls. Confidence working with owners and senior stakeholders. Commercial awareness and curiosity. An ability to turn numbers into clear, practical insight. A proactive approach to systems, processes and reporting. Strong Excel and systems capability. A willingness to remain hands-on. The ambition to take on more responsibility as the business grows. A professional qualification would be welcomed, but this business is far more interested in capability, attitude and commercial awareness than simply collecting letters after someone’s name. Why this role? There is genuine scope here. Initially, the focus will be on creating confidence in finance: accurate numbers, strong reporting, good cashflow visibility and clear processes. From there, the expectation is that this person will increasingly become a trusted commercial partner to the leadership team and take on broader responsibility as the business scales. For someone who enjoys being hands-on today but wants the opportunity to grow into something broader tomorrow, this could be a really interesting move. If this sounds like the sort of environment where you’d thrive, we’d be very happy to tell you more in confidence. We do our best to reply to EVERY application! We have been candidates too and we work hard to treat you in the same way that we would want to be treated. Therefore, we try not to rely on a generic advert disclaimer as this is something that is important for us and the businesses we partner with. Given the high volume of responses we receive from the combination of job boards, social media and other sources and despite our best efforts, many of our responses will be via email as we simply can’t call every application - We know that may not quite what you want to hear but we hope you’ll understand and that you like our approach. We work with great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes us, and our clients stronger, more creative and ultimately better at what we all do. Short-listed candidates will obviously be contacted for this specific role and, regardless of the outcome of this process, feel free to ustilise the ‘job seeker resources’ on our website.