From Insight to Impact: How to leverage the collective financial wisdom of our finance team

In today’s fast-paced landscape, the role of a seasoned finance team goes beyond numbers and the wisdom accumulated over years becomes a priceless asset. Are you harnessing the experience of your finance team? Perhaps you don’t have an in-house finance team to harness.

Don’t work in the dark!

Leverage the wisdom of years of experience which can provide insights which you can turn into impactful decisions, shaping your path for your business’ sustained success.

All the Smart Finance Directors are professionals with years of industry exposure, and this brings a nuanced understanding of trends, risk management, and financial strategies. Not only does that experience help us to recognise patterns and make sound judgements as individuals, but the teams collective experience is magnified as we work collaboratively together.

The benefits don’t stop with our FD’s; the whole team work together to solve problems for our clients.

?“Janet and Sarah are very proactive in offering ways to help us, and I really like the way the team are so responsive and eager to solve issues for us.” Dr Holt Wong, COO, QDot

We offer our clients everything you’d expect from an effective finance team. Starting with sound bookkeeping, through purchase ledger, sales ledger, payroll, VAT. We also offer credit control, statutory accounts, tax returns, management accounts and decision support, all the way up to being the finance wingman to the CEO. So, the full skill stack.

Tracy Smart , the founder of The Smart Finance Team is a firm believer that people are the key drivers of success, and this is the ethos that sits behind The Smart Team. How our skills and personalities supplement each other is a core part of how we work successfully, complementing each other for the benefit of our clients.

“I particularly like how we get access to the different skills and specialities each of them brings to our team as we continue to grow our business.” Mark Lindsay, Director, WeDo Finance

There’s Power in a Diverse Finance Team

Given what our clients are saying we thought it would be good idea to share a bit more about . It’s important to recognise this value and the accumulated experience in our team who often work hard behind the scenes of the businesses they support.

Janet Harding – Smart Finance Director

Janet is a qualified Chartered Accountant with over 30 years’ experience working at senior levels in both the commercial and not-for-profit sector.

She has extensive experience of budgeting, forecasting, and providing insightful financial management reporting as well as implementing new processes and systems. As a Finance Business Partner, Janet often acts as a trusted adviser assisting in key decision-making.

Find out how Janet spends her time when she’s not providing financial insights .

Kasia Szerszenowicz – Smart Finance Director & Virtual Finance Team Lead

Kasia started her finance career in 2008 and qualified as a CIMA Chartered Accountant in 2015. Kasia has broad sector experience including construction, recruitment, media and sport industries.

She has gained substantial finance experience covering a range of functions, all of which benefit the SMEs supported by the virtual finance team. These include financial and management accounts, forecasting, payroll, domestic and international VAT compliance, audit, invoice discounting, team leadership and coaching.

Kasia is driven to seek process improvements for our clients within core areas to lead to greater efficiency. If anyone can streamline your processes and get you organised it's Kasia!

Find out about Kasia’s Japanese philosophy she applies to her day-to-day life .

Zal Sethna – Consultant Chartered Accountant & Tax Advisor

Zal is a qualified Chartered Accountant & Chartered Tax Advisor, with over two decades of experience across a diverse client base, focusing on accounting (financial and management), auditing, payroll, and direct and indirect taxation.

Find out Zal’s mantra .

Philip Briscoe – Consultant Commercial Director

Philip has over 25 years’ experience working for businesses of all shapes and sizes, from start-ups to scale-ups, to multinational corporations in a variety of senior roles including commercial director, chief operating officer and chief corporate development officer.

Philip now works with businesses in early-stage and scale-up phases where he applies his knowledge to support in areas such as unblocking growth inhibitors, commercial strategy development, and investor-readiness for businesses looking to raise equity-based capital.

What keeps Philip busy outside of work?

Sarah Hargreaves – Grant Administrator

Sarah has been a generalist administrator for nearly 40 years thus garnering a wealth of experience in a variety of fields: HR, bookkeeping, facilities management, communications, events management, company secretarial and corporate governance.

When working with micro companies, her aim is to release the innovators, experts and commercial leaders from administrative duties so that they are able to focus on driving their business forward.

Discover Sarah’s secret vice !

Nicki Kinton – Consultant Credit Management Lead

Nicki is a qualified Credit Manager, and with more than 30 years’ industry experience and more than six years as a business owner, she knows all there is to know about helping businesses manage their money and get paid on time.

Nicki believes that late payments are not the problem, they’re a symptom that a business is missing some key activity in the granting, monitoring and controlling of credit terms.

Who said finance people aren’t artistic – find out about Nicki’s talent .

Caroline Cant – Payroll Manager & Finance Assistant

Caroline is a level 3 qualified ICB bookkeeper and payroll manager, she has 10 years’ experience working in industry and practise with clients from many different sectors. She has a passion for payroll and a motivation for management accounts, she believes that good business decisions can only be made with accurate numbers.

Check out Caroline’s Tax Top Tip .

Zuzana Wilson MBA – Finance Officer

Zuzana is one of our finance officers who both enjoys and is successful when working in a team environment. Her work experience has been largely customer orientated, so she is able to manage competing demands and work to deadlines.

Find out what apprenticeship study Zuzana is undertaking .

Magdalena Adams – Finance Assistant

Magdalena is AAT Level 3 qualified. She spent her early working life in education and childcare. In 2020, she decided to change career in financial services and brings a keen eye for detail and wealth of enthusiasm to the team.

Find out Magdalena’s degree , clue, it’s not Accounting!

Not on your headcount but driving your business insights

Imagine if you had all of us on your headcount, your salary bill would go through the roof. Plus, you wouldn’t need us all the time, sometimes only a couple days a month when it comes to our Virtual Finance Directors.

Chat to Tracy about how you can have access to what you need, when you need it to provide insights which will have a positive impact on your business success.