"We'll work out the detail once they start."
It's an understandable thought when the finance work is piling up and you just need help. But with finance roles, a vague scope is one of the most common reasons a hire goes wrong. The advert attracts the wrong people, interviews turn into general conversations, and the person you appoint has to guess what good looks like.
Scoping a role properly doesn't take long. An hour or two of focused thinking before you advertise can save weeks of wasted time afterwards. Here is a simple way to do it.
Step 1: List the work that needs doing
Start with tasks, not titles. Write down every piece of finance work in the business, including the things nobody is doing at the moment. Group them by how often they happen:
- Daily and weekly: invoicing, supplier payments, bank reconciliations, credit control, expenses.
- Monthly: month-end close, management accounts, VAT, payroll checks, reporting.
- Quarterly and yearly: forecasts, budgets, year end, audit, tax deadlines, board or lender reporting.
- Projects: a new system, a process clean-up, a funding round, an acquisition.
Then mark which tasks will move to the new hire, which stay with you or your external accountant, and which will stay with existing team members. This one exercise often changes the role. It may turn out to be a bookkeeping job, or something closer to a controller. If you're unsure which, our guide to choosing between a bookkeeper and a Financial Controller can help.
Step 2: Describe day one honestly
Candidates want to know what they're walking into. Write a short, honest paragraph about the current state of finance:
- Are the books up to date?
- Is the last year end finished?
- Which systems do you use, and do they work well?
- Who does what today?
You don't need to make it sound perfect. Good finance people are often attracted to a role where there is something to fix, as long as they know about it before they accept.
Step 3: Set outcomes for the first 12 months
This is the step most businesses skip, and it's the one that makes everything else easier. Choose three to five outcomes that would make you say the hire was a success. For example:
- management accounts delivered by a set working day each month;
- a cash-flow forecast reviewed with the owner every month;
- year end completed on time with no major adjustments;
- clear approval limits on payments;
- debtor days reduced to an agreed level.
Outcomes give the role a purpose. They also become your interview questions and, later, the basis for reviewing performance.
Step 4: Check the level
Now compare the work and the outcomes with the title you had in mind. They need to describe the same level of role.
Ask yourself:
- Does the title match the work, or is it there to make the job sound attractive?
- Is the experience you're asking for in line with the responsibilities?
- Does the pay you have in mind fit that level in your area?
- Is it really one job, or two or three jobs combined?
That last question matters. A single role covering transactional processing, management reporting and strategic planning is very hard to fill. If that's what you have, consider splitting it or deciding which part matters most right now.
Step 5: Split must-haves from nice-to-haves
Write your requirements list, then challenge each item. Would you genuinely reject a strong candidate who didn't have it? If not, it's a nice-to-have.
Keep the must-haves short. A long list of essentials narrows your pool and often puts off capable people who don't tick every box. Our article on must-have versus nice-to-have finance skills goes into this in more detail.
Step 6: Define the reporting line and authority
Be clear about where the role sits:
- who they report to, and how often you'll meet;
- who, if anyone, reports to them;
- what they can approve or decide without checking;
- how they'll work with your external accountant or any outsourced support.
In smaller businesses, the relationship with the owner or MD shapes the job more than anything else. If you plan to stay closely involved in every decision, say so. It's better for a candidate to know now.
Step 7: Decide how you'll assess candidates
Before the advert goes live, decide how you'll choose. Turn your outcomes and must-haves into a simple scorecard, agree how many stages you'll run, and set a date for the decision. Our guide on how to structure a finance interview sets out a straightforward two-stage approach.
This keeps interviews focused, makes candidates easier to compare and speeds the process up, which matters when good people have other options.
Step 8: Check the timing
Finally, ask whether now is the right time. If you're about to change systems, restructure or raise funding, it may be better to wait a few weeks, or to bring in temporary help while the role settles. A role that is still changing is hard to describe and hard to succeed in.
A quick scoping checklist
Before you advertise, check you can answer yes to each of these:
- I've listed the work and know what moves to the new hire.
- I've described the current state of finance honestly.
- I've written three to five outcomes for the first year.
- The title, responsibilities and pay describe the same level.
- My must-haves list is short and genuinely essential.
- The reporting line and decision-making authority are clear.
- I have a scorecard and a planned interview process.
- Now is the right time to hire.
If you're scoping a first senior finance role, our guide to hiring your first Financial Controller covers the extra points worth checking. And if your current advert isn't attracting the right people, see why Management Accountant roles attract the wrong applicants.
Want a second opinion?
Finance Hiring Lab stress-tests your finance role before you advertise. You tell us about the business and the role, and we give you a clear verdict (hire, reshape or pause) with a job description, an advert and an interview scorecard, by 5pm the next working day.
Every report is checked before release by a finance recruitment specialist with ten years' experience as owner-director of a boutique finance recruitment consultancy.