Interim Management And Part-Time Staffing

Seda Bayraktar, CPA
Partner
Accounting Compliance & Reporting
E-mail to Seda

Interim Management And/Or Part-Time Staffing Is The Common Need Of Companies But Not Considered At First Glance

In a tight labour market, you may have a need for quality interim management or part time staffing instead of full time. Serious time constraints, opportunities that exceed the possibilities, meeting culture and increasingly urgent demands by the headquarters or stakeholders have a negative effect on local implementation. Frequent maternity leave, headcount stops, showing delayed recruitment, the luxury of a full pipeline or frequent market introductions may affect the quality of your departments’ performance. Other reasons for hiring temporary/part-time staff might be the workload may not support full time staffing - for example you may just need a person to perform the month-end reporting which may be completed in 2-3 days at the end of each month. Or even if you have managed to find the ideal match, or you have not yet identified the optimal choice, a vacancy could be open for many months – sometimes up to a year.

Processing time may become luxury and you can never escape from working during leisure time or travel. Who is going to do the work, and who will guarantee quality? Not exercising your carefully developed and budgeted projects is the single most important and most expensive cause of not realising your business goals. Qualified finance professionals are hard to get, and today’s career flexibility is not really going to improve this situation.

Defined as a resource to help organizations undergoing change, trying to implement a critical strategy or looking to plug a crucial management or skills gap, organizations use interims/part time staff for:

Change management
Crisis management/troubleshooting
Heavy workload and inability to increase headcount
Maternity cover
Long-term sick leave
Sudden departure in the team

The contracts are mostly made over a month in length. Some assignments continue on a rolling basis for much longer, although most are between six and 12 months in length. Most of the companies expect the interim professionals to be based in their office for the majority of the contract period, however there is usually flexibility for some outsourcing.
The companies seek interim professionals for three primary reasons: exceptional service; consistent, high quality consultants; and fast, effective solutions that meet or exceed their expectations.

There are service providers offering veteran controllers or accountants support on a part-time, interim, or special project basis (e.g. monthly reporting to headquarters, restructurings, accounting system integration). The companies benefit from getting exactly the right level of professional experience and impact—when they need it and at just the right weekly time commitment (e.g. couple of hours per month to 1 – 3 days per week).

You may need interim/part-time controllers and accountants to manage the following functions at your company:

Financial Reporting

Accurate and timely monthly financial reporting including the preparation of the Group Reporting Package in accordance with the Group Accounting Principles, IFRS, US GAAP, etc.
Accurate and timely regulatory reporting in accordance with the Turkish Commercial Code

Finance/Accounting Oversight

Cash flow forecast
Oversight and training of existing and new company accounting personnel
Management of payments
Oversight of administrative areas such as purchasing, invoicing, and personnel

Systems & Processes

Implementing stronger internal controls and systems to ensure disciplined monthly closing cycles
Transitioning to new accounting software

Bookkeeping and Tax Compliance

Preparation of journal vouchers and inputting all accounting entries into the accounting system in accordance with the Turkish Uniform Chart of Accounts (Turkish GAAP)
Performance of the quarterly and annual closing and preparation of general ledger, trial balance, balance sheets and profit and loss statement in Turkish Lira in compliance with Turkish Commercial Code and Tax Regulations
Preparation of the quarterly withholding tax returns, monthly value added tax and stamp tax returns, quarterly prepaid tax returns and annual corporation tax returns and the annual statutory financial statements that form part of the tax return and submitting the tax returns to the Tax office
Preparing monthly B forms and submitting the tax returns to the Tax office
Preparing and submitting yearly forms of the Undersecretariat of Turkish Treasury
Preparation of the quarterly statutory financial statements and tax package in English

The right interim/part-time staff

Interim/part time staff are not necessarily only there to overcome crises or organisational change. You may need a person who understands your business, your problem and complies with your solutions, someone who can take up the work immediately, with broad professional experience. The right kind of interim/part time staff is an experienced, highly qualified professional who is available at short notice and can immediately set to work without a learning curve. A true interim/part-time staff is more than a freelancer. He or she has a proven track record, good networking skills and is able to quickly adapt to new situations.

We, as Cerebra, can take up from top to mid-level managerial projects and help you to realise your business goals. From a few weeks to longer periods, or even many years, we can provide professional interim or part-time services.