Interim financial control for aerospace.

What an interim financial controller does in aerospace

He rebuilds the truth of costs, part number by part number. In an aerospace plant, the unit cost of a part depends on a long routing, irregular scrap, rework hours booked to the wrong order and a labour rate that has sometimes not been reviewed for three years. The interim financial controller reworks the cost structure, makes hour booking reliable, rebuilds work-in-progress valuation and produces a variance report the management team can read every week. He works at the foot of the machines as much as in the ERP, because a cost variance that cannot be explained on the shop floor cannot be explained anywhere.

When aerospace companies call in an interim financial controller

The need for interim financial control in aerospace almost always starts with a loss of visibility. A rate increase imposed by the prime contractor sends overtime and expedited freight through the roof, without anyone being able to say what the delivered part actually costs. An acquisition or a new investor requires programme accounting the company has never kept. A departure left unfilled empties the post in the middle of a closing, with work in progress to value and auditors waiting. A contract review shows that the margin announced on a multi-year deal rests on rate assumptions that no longer hold. For a foreign group running a French subsidiary, the same need appears at another moment: an acquisition due diligence, a greenfield site, or a first consolidation under French accounting rules. In each case the difficulty is not accounting, it is industrial. You need someone who can read a works order as well as a profit and loss account, and who can produce defensible figures within weeks.

Profile: who fits an aerospace plant

The profile is an industrial financial controller, not a head-office analyst. He has spent years in plants, knows routings, bills of material and scrap, and knows what a machine hour is worth. He masters the ERP in place, most often SAP or Sage X3, down to cost tables and allocation keys. He has already run programme accounting on long-cycle contracts, with percentage of completion, provisions for losses at completion and tracking of customer advances. He understands the documentary requirements of EN 9100 and knows why a release inspection is expensive. Finally, he knows how to talk to shop floor supervisors: the reliability of the figures is decided when hours are booked, so in the relationship with the people who book them.

What an aerospace executive should expect

From an interim financial controller in aerospace, an executive should expect explainable figures, available on a fixed date, and a decision that becomes possible. In practice: a unit cost per part number the management team can defend in front of its customer, a weekly variance report that separates rate drift from material cost drift, a work-in-progress valuation that passes the auditors’ review, and a budget revised three times a year rather than once. He leaves behind a tool the resident team can run on its own, not a file nobody dares reopen.

A typical assignment in aerospace

The context :  A tier 1 aerostructures supplier, 180 people, ramping up on a civil programme. Margin erodes quarter after quarter with no shared explanation. The permanent financial controller left three months earlier, the half-year closing is approaching and work in progress has not been valued since. The stakes :  Rebuild a reliable unit cost per part number, explain the margin drift, secure the work-in-progress valuation before the closing. The assignment :  Rework the cost structure, make hour booking reliable, put a weekly variance report back in place. How it runs :  First month: audit of hour bookings and labour rates, interviews with shop floor supervisors, review of work in progress. Second and third months: rebuild of the unit cost per part number, weekly variance reporting, support through the closing. Then: budget revision, handover to the resident team and training of the successor. Duration :  5 to 8 months. Expected outcome :  A margin explained line by line, a closing signed off without qualification, and cost tracking the team runs on its own.

Interim financial control: when to bring it in

A departure left unfilled in the middle of a closing, a rate increase whose effect nobody can quantify, an investor demanding programme accounting, or unexplained margin drift on a long-cycle contract. For a foreign parent company, add the first months after acquiring a French plant, when the figures have to be restated before they can be trusted. The common thread: management is taking decisions without reliable figures, and every month that passes makes the rebuild more expensive.

In every case the mechanics are the same : an expert calls you back within 2 working hours. We present three targeted profiles within 72 hours, all of them from aerospace plants or from suppliers held to the same documentary requirements. You choose, the assignment starts.

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