How to Improve Communication and Drive Productivity in Finance Teams: Proven Strategies for Success

Finance teams that feel overstretched are usually not short of people. They are short of capacity, because too much of it is consumed by producing the month-end close and absorbing requests from the rest of the business. What is left over — the commercial partnering, the analysis, the improvement work — gets squeezed out.

Communication is central to this, but not in the way most guidance suggests. The issue is rarely that people are not talking; it is that ownership is unclear, requests arrive unstructured, and nothing has a rhythm. This covers what actually changes that.

Where the Capacity Actually Goes

Before changing anything, establish where the time goes. Most finance leaders are surprised by the answer, and the exercise itself is worth the effort.

Month-end close

In a struggling function this dominates. The close stretches across most of the following month, so the team is barely finished before the next one starts. The symptoms are recognisable: reconciliations left to the end, late accruals, journals posted under time pressure, and a pack that arrives too late to act on.

Reactive requests

Ad hoc demands from operations, sales, HR and the board — each individually reasonable, collectively substantial. Where every request is treated as immediately urgent, the team is permanently interrupted and nothing planned gets finished.

Planned and improvement work

Whatever remains. In a stretched function this approaches zero, which is why nothing ever improves — the work that would create capacity is the work that gets dropped.

Shortening the Close

The single highest-return intervention available, because it releases capacity every month rather than once.

Assign ownership by component

Every element of the close — each control account, each accrual, each intercompany balance — should have a named owner and a deadline within the timetable. Diffuse responsibility is what produces the last-minute scramble, because nobody is accountable until everything is late at once.

Move work out of the close window

A great deal of what happens after period end does not need to. Reconciliations can be performed during the month, recurring journals prepared in advance, accruals estimated from a standing schedule. The close becomes a review exercise rather than a production exercise.

Publish the timetable and hold it

A written close timetable with dates and owners, visible to the whole team and to the departments that feed it. Much close delay originates outside finance — late purchase invoices, unapproved timesheets, missing stock counts — and those contributors need to know their deadline.

Stop reconciling things that do not matter

Materiality applies to process as well as to reporting. Teams frequently reconcile immaterial balances to the penny out of habit. Reviewing what genuinely needs doing each month, and what can be quarterly, releases time without any loss of control.

Handling the Rest of the Business

Reactive request handling is the most common drain on finance capacity and the least often managed.

Triage rather than queue

Batching non-urgent requests into a defined weekly cycle, rather than handling each on arrival, protects concentration and makes the workload visible. Genuinely urgent items still get handled immediately — the point is that most requests are not urgent, they simply arrive as though they are.

Route requests to a single point

Where anyone can approach anyone, work arrives unevenly and invisibly. A single intake — a shared inbox, a channel, a form — makes demand measurable, which is the prerequisite for managing it.

Answer the question behind the request

A recurring request for the same report usually means someone lacks visibility of something. Solving that once removes the request permanently, which is worth more than servicing it efficiently forever.

Say what things cost

Non-finance colleagues rarely appreciate that a “quick analysis” takes half a day. Making the effort visible — without obstruction — changes what people ask for, and is more effective than declining requests.

Establishing a Cadence

For teams below about ten people, a regular structured team meeting produces more improvement than any technology investment. It works because it makes work visible and surfaces blockers before they become delays.

Weekly team meeting with a fixed agenda

Short, same time each week, covering what is in progress, what is blocked, and what the priorities are for the coming week. The fixed agenda matters — without it these meetings become status recitals that nobody values.

Clear escalation routes

The team should know what warrants raising with the FD or CFO immediately rather than waiting. Where escalation is undefined, issues either surface too late or everything gets escalated, and both are damaging.

One-to-ones that are not status updates

Regular individual conversations covering development and difficulties rather than task progress. In finance functions these are frequently the first thing dropped under pressure, and their absence shows up later as avoidable turnover.

A short post-close review

Thirty minutes after each close asking what went wrong and what would prevent it next month. Done consistently, this compounds — each month removes a recurring problem, and the close shortens without a project.

Communicating Outside Finance

Much of what finance teams experience as a communication problem is really a translation problem.

Report to the question, not the ledger

Management packs frequently present what the accounting system produces rather than what the business needs to decide. Asking each recipient what decision they use the pack for — and removing what nobody uses — usually shortens it substantially and improves it.

Lead with the conclusion

Finance training encourages building from detail to conclusion. Most non-finance audiences need the reverse: what happened, what it means, what needs deciding, with supporting detail available but not leading.

Avoid technical shorthand

Accruals, WIP, deferred income and contribution are precise terms to a finance team and jargon to everyone else. Where a pack requires interpretation, it will be misinterpreted.

Make the ask explicit

If finance needs a decision, an approval or information, saying so plainly at the point of asking removes most of the chasing that follows.

Technology: A Realistic View

Tools help, and they are not the answer. A team without clear ownership, a workable close timetable or a request process will not be rescued by new software — it will simply have the same problems in a new interface, plus an implementation to manage.

The sensible sequence is to fix ownership, cadence and process first, then automate what is genuinely repetitive. Where technology does earn its place, the highest-value applications in a finance function are usually automated reconciliation, scheduled reporting that removes manual pack assembly, and a shared view of the close timetable so status is visible without anyone asking.

A note on security: finance teams handle sensitive data, so any collaboration tool needs to satisfy UK GDPR obligations and your own access controls. That is a genuine constraint, not a formality.

When the Problem Is Capability, Not Process

Not every stretched finance function has a process problem. Sometimes the team is genuinely too small, or lacks the seniority the business now requires.

Signals that it is structural

• The close has been rebuilt and still cannot be delivered on time.
• Specific capability is missing entirely — consolidation, technical reporting, systems.
• The senior person is doing work well below their level because there is nobody else to do it.
• Turnover is high, and exit conversations point consistently at workload.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you improve productivity in a finance team?

Start by establishing where capacity actually goes across close, reactive requests and planned work. In most stretched functions, shortening the close through clear component ownership and moving work out of the close window releases the most capacity, followed by triaging ad hoc requests into a structured cycle rather than handling each on arrival.

How long should a month-end close take?

It varies with complexity, but a close consuming most of the following month leaves no capacity for anything else and is a reliable signal that ownership and timetable discipline need rebuilding. The practical target is a close short enough that the pack is useful for decisions rather than merely historical.

Should we add headcount?

Not first. A new person joining a function with unclear ownership and unmanaged demand is absorbed by the same pattern within a quarter. Fix the process, then assess what capacity is genuinely missing — the answer is frequently seniority rather than numbers.

What is the most effective change for a small finance team?

A weekly team meeting with a fixed agenda covering work in progress, blockers and priorities. For teams under ten people this typically produces more improvement than any technology investment, because it makes work visible and surfaces problems while they are still small.

How do we stop constant interruptions from other departments?

Route requests through a single intake so demand is visible, batch non-urgent items into a defined weekly cycle, and address the underlying gap behind recurring requests rather than servicing them repeatedly. Making the effort involved visible changes what people ask for.

Will new software fix it?

Not on its own. Technology reduces manual effort but does not create ownership, cadence or process. Teams that implement tools before settling those find the same problems reappear in a new system, with an implementation to manage as well.

Adrian Lawrence FCA

Founder & Managing Director, FD Capital

Adrian Lawrence FCA is the founder of FD Capital and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). He holds a BSc from Queen Mary College, University of London, and has over 25 years of experience as a Chartered Accountant and finance leader working with private, PE-backed and owner-managed businesses across the UK. He founded FD Capital in 2018 to connect growing businesses with the Finance Directors and CFOs they need to scale — and personally interviews candidates for senior finance appointments.

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