I build the automated finance stack that lets you double your turnover without doubling your back-office headcount.
SMEs with turnover up to £10m are stuck in the middle — skilled finance teams buried under manual work that should have been automated years ago.
A bottleneck founder or a Finance Manager buried in paper invoices. You can't scale because your back office can't handle more volume. The solution isn't more people — it's better systems.
Every engagement follows the same proven structure — from understanding your current bottlenecks to a finance function that scales with your growth.
The Assessment anchors Stage 1. Implementation spans Stages 2–3. The Fractional retainer drives Stage 4.
Four interconnected service areas — each designed to remove a different layer of manual work from your finance function.
Here is what the same seven finance tasks look like before and after working with me.
| Stage | ❌ Manual — The Old Way | ⚡ After Digitisation |
|---|---|---|
| Invoice Processing | ✗Finance Manager manually keying invoices from email and post — hours lost daily | ✓Dext/Hubdoc OCR captures and codes invoices automatically — reviewed in minutes |
| Expense Claims | ✗Paper receipts, spreadsheet submissions, manual approval chains | ✓Pleo or Spendesk — real-time spend, digital receipts, auto-coded and approved |
| Bank Reconciliation | ✗Matching transactions one-by-one against the ledger | ✓Auto-matched bank feeds with confidence scores — exceptions only |
| Reporting | ✗2 days building Excel board packs — always out of date by the time they're shared | ✓Spotlight Reporting or Fathom — live board packs at the click of a button |
| VAT Returns | ✗Pulling figures from multiple spreadsheets, manual cross-checking | ✓Auto-populated from coded transactions, reviewed and filed in hours |
| Payroll | ✗Manual calculations, re-keying into multiple systems, email approval chains | ✓Automated payroll run with integrated approvals and same-day exception alerts |
| Audit Prep | ✗4 weeks of locating documents, reconciling ledgers, answering auditor queries | ✓2 weeks — digital audit trail, all documents in one place, queries answered same day |
| TOTAL SAVING | Across all 7 stages of your finance function | £29,000 – £49,000 / year |
Real outcomes from real engagements — anonymised but fully costed.
A growing SME with a Finance Manager spending the majority of their week on manual invoice processing and audit preparation. The audit was taking four weeks every year — consuming senior management time and delaying the annual accounts.
Following a Finance Digitisation Assessment and implementation of a cloud accounting system with automated document management, the company digitised its purchase and sales ledgers end-to-end.
Complete the Finance Digitisation Assessment and I guarantee your business will identify sustainable cost savings of 10–15% of your current finance operating costs — or you pay nothing.
Not a vague report. Not generic best practice. A specific, costed plan built around your team, your systems, and your budget — backed by 20 years of senior finance experience.
All engagements scoped and priced before work begins. You know the cost before we start.
All engagements scoped and priced before work begins. No surprises, no scope creep.
Three steps. No jargon. No surprises.
A qualified accountant with over 20 years of finance experience, including 11 years in senior leadership within the charity sector. I have a proven track record of transforming finance departments by identifying and implementing digital solutions that deliver lasting, measurable results.
I have worked hands-on with ERP migrations, process redesigns, automation programmes, and governance frameworks — always with the same goal: giving finance teams the tools and time to do their best work.
Book your free 30-minute discovery call. No obligation. No jargon. Just an honest conversation about where your finance function is today and what it could look like.
Book Your Free Discovery Call ✉ sylvie@zemaconsultancy.com www.zemaconsultancy.com