16. May 2026
Operational Excellence
Merixa Insights · Finance Transformation & Team Build
A finance foundation built for growth — and the four steps that transform an inherited operating model into a deliberate one.
The distinction between a finance function that supports growth and one that constrains it is rarely visible in the quality of the people it employs. It is visible in the quality of the operating model within which those people work. An inherited operating model — one that was never deliberately designed, that accumulated its current shape through successive responses to immediate pressure — will limit a capable team in ways that neither the team nor the surrounding leadership can fully see from inside the structure. The ceiling it creates is real. It is also removable.
Operational excellence in a finance function is not a destination defined by technology adoption or headcount composition. It is a state in which the processes, controls, and handoffs that govern financial work are consciously designed around the demands of the current business — and maintained with sufficient rigour that they remain fit for purpose as those demands evolve. Reaching that state follows a sequence. What follows is that sequence, in the order it works.
" An operating model that has never been deliberately designed is not a neutral starting point. It is an accumulation of inherited decisions — many of which are costing the business more than it realises and fewer of which are necessary than it assumes."
From inherited model to deliberate foundation
Map the current model without assumption
Before any process is changed, eliminated, or automated, map what the finance function currently does — in full, at the task level, including the informal workarounds and manual steps that sit between the documented procedures and the actual work. This mapping exercise is not comfortable. It typically reveals a volume of process activity that surprises even the most experienced finance leaders — not because the team is inefficient, but because no single person has ever held a complete view of the operating model as a whole. The map is the honest baseline the transformation requires. Without it, every subsequent change is made against an incomplete picture of what is actually being redesigned.
Test each process step against current necessity
Apply a single consistent test to every step the mapping reveals: does this step exist because the current business requires it, or because a previous version of the business created it and nobody has formally removed it? Steps that fail this test fall into one of three categories — those that can be eliminated, those that can be consolidated with an adjacent step, and those that can be automated without loss of control integrity. The distribution across these three categories is organisation-specific and should not be assumed in advance. What is commonly observed across scaling organisations, in our advisory experience, is that a meaningful proportion of close cycle elapsed time and a significant share of manual processing volume falls into one of these three categories — though the precise proportion varies considerably by business complexity, entity structure, and systems maturity.
Redesign the record-to-report cycle around a target close date
Once the process map has been rationalised, rebuild the record-to-report cycle backward from a defined target close date — one that is ambitious relative to current performance but achievable within the constraints of the rationalised process architecture. Every remaining step is sequenced against that date, with named ownership, defined inputs and outputs, and explicit dependency mapping so that delays in one step are visible to the steps that follow before they become embedded in the close timeline. The target close date is not a performance aspiration. It is a design constraint — the discipline around which the new operating model is built and against which its ongoing performance is measured.
Institutionalise the operating model review as a standing governance practice
The most commonly missed step in finance operating model transformation is the final one: establishing the mechanism that prevents the redesigned model from accumulating the same institutional friction it replaced. This requires a standing periodic review — conducted at least annually — at which the operating model is examined against the current demands of the business, redundant steps are identified and removed, and ownership accountability is formally confirmed. The review does not need to be extensive. It needs to be consistent and authorised. Without it, the transformation produces a model that is excellent for the business as it exists at the point of redesign and gradually becomes misaligned as the business continues to evolve. The goal is not a perfect operating model. It is a permanently improving one.
What the foundation makes possible
A finance function operating on a deliberately designed, regularly reviewed operating model does not simply perform more efficiently. It creates the conditions under which every other aspect of financial management improves: management reporting is more timely, FP&A has protected capacity for analysis, cash flow visibility is maintained with less effort, and the finance team's contribution to commercial decision-making becomes the rule rather than the exception. The operating model is not the most visible part of the finance function. It is the part that determines whether every other part works as well as it should. Building it deliberately — once, in the right sequence, with the governance to maintain it — is the foundational investment that most organisations defer and the most capable ones make early.
Merixa works with leadership teams to redesign finance operating models that support the demands of growth — built deliberately, maintained consistently, and aligned to the business as it is today. Explore our solutions →
The observations and recommended sequence in this post represent professional opinion informed by practitioner experience in finance operating model design across scaling organisations. They are not presented as universally applicable prescriptions or as statistically validated findings. The sequence described may require adaptation depending on the size, systems maturity, and structural complexity of the organisation. Readers should apply independent judgement and seek appropriate professional advice before initiating operating model changes of this nature. Merixa Advisory provides Finance Operating Model services to organisations of the type described — this commercial context should be considered when evaluating the perspectives offered here.