Insights / For business owners
Data security and IP: protecting your business in a fractional engagement
A fractional finance lead will see your most sensitive numbers in their first week, and work somewhere else the week after. Here's how to make that entirely comfortable and secure.
It is the hesitation we hear most often, and it is a fair one. A fractional CFO or FD often has more access in a fortnight than most of your employees get in a year: payroll, bank mandates, the debt model, the acquisition target, the numbers behind your own worries. Then they leave on a Tuesday and walk into another business on a Wednesday.
None of this is complicated to manage. It just needs deciding at the start, by you, rather than assumed by either side. And let's not forget, if the back door is left open for a fractional, it's open for your employees and your finance team too.
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Whose laptop are they working on?
The simplest control you have. Issue a device, or give access through a managed virtual desktop inside your own Microsoft 365 or Google environment, under your security policies. When the engagement ends, the device comes back and the access is switched off in one move. If they use their own equipment, ask what protects it: encryption, multi-factor authentication, current software and a machine used for nothing else. A senior professional will have a ready answer, and will not be offended by the question.
The access rules worth insisting on
Least privilege. Give access to what the engagement needs, not to everything because it's quicker to set up that way.
Named accounts. Never a shared "finance" login. If something goes wrong, you need to know who did what.
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