Time! Yours is valuable and you are better utilised on the more technical or complex process at year end. NOT reconciliations

You are not expected to know everything. If you need specialist advice buy it in at a considerably lower rate than your Accountants

Use the budget season to get closer to your business and hire in a contractor to do the grunt work

Your family. Although you signed up for some long hours – not midnight for a month solid is not going to go down well with the significant other

Its not just about you. Free up some of your team to get involved with year end for their development and hire in a contractor to sort out their day to day

Hire in some fresh ideas. If you have been doing year end the same way for the last 10 years ask yourself why. Maybe a fresh set of eyes can add real value

The total cost to your business of long hours and inefficient processes are more expensive then the hourly rate of a contractor. Remember its not the rate but the total cost if it takes you twice as long as it would have taken a contractor.

Don’t put the projects on hold because its year end.

Near enough is not good enough at year end. You scrape through with limited resources for the rest of the year saving your company lots of money. Use some of these savings to make sure year end is as clean as it can be

Your health! Don’t suffer through because you think this is what being a CFO is. Its not. The smartest hire a contractor.