Can I Increase FD Days for a Fundraise or Audit?

One of the most valuable features of engaging a fractional Finance Director is the ability to flex the level of support up or down as your business needs change. Business life is not uniform — quiet periods of steady-state operation are punctuated by intense episodes of activity that require significantly more financial leadership than your standard monthly allocation provides. Fundraising rounds, statutory audits, acquisitions, restructurings, and significant regulatory events all fall into this category. The short answer to whether you can increase your FD's days for these periods is yes — and doing so through FractionalFD is straightforward.

Why Busy Periods Demand More FD Time

Understanding why certain business events are particularly FD-intensive helps you plan and budget for them effectively. The key events that typically require a substantial uplift in fractional FD time include:

Fundraising Rounds

Whether you are raising a Seed, Series A, or growth equity round, investor due diligence is one of the most FD-intensive activities your business will undertake. Investors will scrutinise your financial model, your historical accounts, your management accounts, your cap table, your working capital assumptions, and your forecasting methodology. A Series A process with a sophisticated institutional investor can easily consume fifteen to twenty FD days over a two-to-three-month period — far more than a standard four-day monthly retainer can accommodate. Your FD needs to build and maintain the data room, respond to investor queries, attend pitch meetings and Q&A sessions, and negotiate term sheet economics. This work cannot be done at the margins of a light-touch engagement.

Annual Statutory Audit

If your company is subject to a statutory audit under the Companies Act 2006 — required for businesses above the audit threshold (currently a balance sheet total above £5.1 million, annual turnover above £10.2 million, or more than 50 employees) — your FD will be the primary liaison with the audit team. Preparing the year-end accounts pack, answering auditor queries, managing the audit timetable, and reviewing the draft statutory accounts all require dedicated, intensive FD time that typically exceeds the standard monthly allocation by a factor of two or three in the audit preparation month.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Business Sales

Whether you are acquiring another business or are being acquired, the financial due diligence process is exhaustive. For a target business, your FD must prepare a detailed information memorandum, manage the data room, respond to a comprehensive list of due diligence questions covering financial history, tax positions, PAYE and VAT compliance, and working capital — all under significant time pressure from deal timetables. For an acquirer, your FD needs to review the target's financial information, model the combined entity, and advise on valuation and deal structure. Neither role is manageable within a standard low-day engagement during the deal period.

HMRC Enquiries and Tax Investigations

An HMRC compliance check or full investigation creates immediate demand for senior finance time. Your FD must review the historical records being queried, prepare detailed responses to HMRC's information requests, liaise with your tax advisers, and manage the process through to resolution. Depending on the scope of the enquiry, this can absorb significant time over several months.

The businesses that get the most out of a fractional FD engagement are those that plan for surge periods rather than being caught unprepared — and who structure their engagement to allow for flexible scaling.

How Flexing Days Works in Practice

FractionalFD engagements are structured to accommodate temporary increases to the standard day allocation. When you know a busy period is approaching, you should discuss the uplift requirement with your FD and your FractionalFD account manager as early as possible — ideally four to six weeks in advance. This allows:

• Your FD to manage their portfolio schedule and create appropriate availability
• An agreed day-rate uplift to be formalised and documented
• A project scope to be defined, so that both parties understand what the additional days are expected to deliver
• Any specialist resource needs to be identified (e.g. a tax specialist for an HMRC enquiry, an M&A adviser for a deal process)

Once the busy period concludes, the engagement returns to the standard monthly allocation without any permanent increase to your retainer fee. This elasticity is one of the most cost-effective features of the fractional model — you access intensive senior support when you genuinely need it and return to a leaner arrangement when things normalise.

What If Your FD Cannot Accommodate the Uplift?

Occasionally, your dedicated fractional FD may not have sufficient availability to accommodate a substantial uplift — for instance, if they already have a demanding period with another client. In these situations, FractionalFD will provide an additional specialist resource from the network to work alongside your FD for the duration of the busy period. Your FD maintains the client relationship and strategic oversight; the additional resource handles specific workstreams under their direction. This approach preserves the relationship and institutional knowledge your FD has built while ensuring the busy period is properly resourced.

Budgeting for Intensive Periods

When planning your annual budget, it is sensible to set aside a contingency for FD day uplifts. Most businesses using a fractional FD service will experience at least one significant uplift event per year. A realistic planning assumption is to budget for one to two months of uplift activity at approximately double your standard monthly retainer. This represents a fraction of the cost of hiring an interim FD at short notice through a recruitment agency, which typically commands a day rate of £800 to £1,500 for senior interim finance directors in the UK market.

For more context on how standard day allocations are structured, see our guide on how many days per month your FD will be available. And to understand how your FD handles periods when they are not available at all, read our article on what happens if your FD is unavailable.