Project vs BAU: why your finance team can't do both

Here's the pattern we see over and over. The business needs a new ERP, a proper budgeting model, a debt refinance or a finance function that can survive due diligence. Nobody is hired to do it. The project gets handed to the best person already in the team, usually the Financial Controller or Finance Director, with a pat on the back and a deadline that assumes month end will happen just as it always has.

It will, of course, and it will take exactly as long as it always does. But don't expect the project to complete.

What's the difference, really?

BAU (business as usual) is a rhythm. Close the ledgers, pay the suppliers, run payroll, report to the board, repeat. It rewards consistency, control and people who like the same thing done well every time. Most finance teams are designed for it, and if they're any good, they've spent years removing surprises from it.

A project is something else entirely. It has a start, an end, a budget and an expected outcome, and if it touches BAU it needs careful planning and will most likely have to be executed outside the regular cycle. Don't assume the team in the trenches can run it — or will want to run a project that reduces the business's reliance on them. That's us being slightly cynical, but it's one hundred per cent true. And for the ones who are willing, the reward is more work in the short term and, quite possibly, doing something they have never done before.

We've all heard the saying: building the bike whilst trying to ride it.

Why does the "give it to the FC or FD" plan fail?

Not because your FC or FD isn't capable. Usually because they are, which is exactly why you gave it to them. And set the willingness point aside for a moment: even the ones who want it hit three walls that have nothing to do with talent.

• Capacity is already spoken for. A good FC or FD in a £30m to £75m business is running at 90% before you add anything. The project gets evenings and weekends, and then it gets nothing, because month end always wins the argument.

• The skills are different. Running a close is not the same as scoping a systems implementation, negotiating with a software vendor or selling change to a sceptical operations team. Some people can do both, and they go on to be a CFO. But why make it a sink or swim scenario?

• Nobody owns the end date. In BAU the calendar sets the deadline. In a project, a person has to. When that person's day job has its own deadlines, the project's deadline is the one that moves. And when it does land, it rarely adds the value it should: the FC or FD couldn't get the buy-in, so the project gets finished with as little friction as possible.

The cost shows up quietly. The project runs six months late and the business pays for two systems while the old one limps on. And the person who leaves is usually the FC or FD you overloaded, taking the BAU knowledge and the project knowledge with them in one resignation letter.

So how should you split it?

Start by writing down which work is which. It sounds obvious, but it rarely happens, primarily because we're all attempting to do more with less. A simple test: if it would still need doing next year in the same form, it's BAU. If it has a finish line and a before-and-after, it's a project.

Then protect the BAU team from the project, not the other way round. They are the engine. A project should draw on their knowledge for a few defined hours a week. Hand the project itself to a Fraci, somebody with a track record of delivering it, and a cost that stops when the project does.

Where does AI fit in this?

The projects that remove manual BAU work, like automating bank reconciliations, building Power BI dashboards to replace a 40-tab Excel pack, or using Xero or NetSuite rules to kill off hours of coding, are exactly the projects that never get done, because the team is too busy doing the manual work. Automation is a project. Treat it like one, resource it like one, and once it's complete, assess what BAU actually needs from there.

Who should run the project, then?

Somebody whose only job is the project, for as long as the project lasts, and not a day longer — or somebody already qualified in the ranks who can apportion the right amount of time to it each day, week or month, provided that time is genuinely ring-fenced and somebody else picks up what they put down. Do that properly and it works. Do it on top of the day job and you're back at the start of this article. That's the whole case for time-bound finance talent. A fractional or interim finance lead who has done the thing before and brings some kind of playbook, holds the end date, and leaves when it's done. No redundancy conversation, no permanent salary for a temporary problem, no FC burning out on a Sunday night.

It's also why the market for this kind of work frustrates us, unless you want to spend countless hours on LinkedIn, scrolling through AI-generated noise trying to find the answer. Businesses have a project-shaped problem, and the recruitment industry sells them a permanent-shaped answer, because that's where the fee is. The finance professionals best placed to fix it are sitting there, available, and invisible to the people who need them.

A three-question check before your next finance project

1. Can you name the person accountable for the end date, and is their time on it genuinely protected from everything else?

2. If they spent 40% of their time on this for six months, what happens to BAU?

3. When it's finished, who owns the new process, and have they been involved from week one?

If any of those answers made you wince, the project is under-resourced before it starts.

Senior finance capability, for exactly as long as the problem lasts. Fracifind introduces experienced fractional finance professionals, vetted and in confidence. No placement fee, no percentage of salary. Register your interest at fracifind.com.