How We Built a 5-Person Finance Team Framework That Scales With Every Business

Financial management should scale with your business, not slow it down. Yet many growing companies find themselves stuck between disjointed support and premature hiring. Spreadsheets multiply, reporting becomes inconsistent, and no one is quite sure who owns what.

At unreconciled, we recognised a common need among early-stage and scaling businesses. They needed a finance function that could grow with them, adapt to complexity, and remain lean and efficient. That’s why we designed a five-person team model that provides the right level of support at every stage of growth.

Why traditional finance setups fall short

Many businesses begin with a single bookkeeper or outsourced accountant. This works in the beginning, when finance is primarily about staying organised and filing returns. But once the company starts growing, things change.

Raising funding, managing headcount, handling investor expectations, and tracking cash runway all introduce new demands. What once worked well becomes stretched. Bookkeepers are asked to produce board-level reports. Founders spend time chasing numbers rather than understanding them. Senior finance hires are brought in too early, only to get bogged down in low-value tasks.

The result is a finance function that is reactive, overstretched, and misaligned with business priorities.

How our five-person model works

To solve this, we built a team structure with five clearly defined roles. This framework allows for specialisation, ensures nothing slips through the cracks, and delivers high-quality financial support without unnecessary complexity.

The roles include:

• Partner or Manager – Provides strategic oversight and ensures finance supports business goals
• Controller – Oversees reporting, compliance, and internal controls
• Project Coordinator – Manages day-to-day requests and ensures communication flows smoothly
• Management Accountant – Delivers performance reporting, forecasting, and financial planning
• Bookkeeper – Maintains daily records, reconciliations, and accurate transaction data

Each role plays a specific part, but together they function as a cohesive unit that covers both operations and strategy.

Why this model scales with your business

What makes this framework powerful is its flexibility. For early-stage businesses, the focus may be on cash flow, basic reporting, and reliable bookkeeping. As the business grows, the same team structure can expand its focus to include budgeting, investor updates, and scenario planning.

Instead of rebuilding your finance team at every stage, this model allows you to start with the right structure from the beginning. You gain continuity, reduce growing pains, and avoid the disruption of constant hiring or process overhauls.

The business benefits of a structured finance team

With a layered finance function, you benefit from:

• Clear accountability across all finance tasks
• Reliable, timely, and insightful reporting
• A finance team that grows with your needs, not ahead of them
• Processes that reduce dependency on any one individual
• Time saved for founders and executives who no longer need to fill the finance gap themselves

This structure also makes your business more attractive to investors, lenders, and acquirers. A well-run finance function signals operational maturity and gives external stakeholders confidence in your numbers.

Final thoughts

Finance teams are often built too slowly or too suddenly. What makes a real difference is structure, not size. The right structure brings stability, insight, and scalability without unnecessary overhead.

Our five-person framework was designed to solve exactly that. It brings together the essential capabilities every growing business needs, in a way that is flexible, efficient, and built to last.

If your business is growing, your finance function should be designed to grow with it.