How many finance people does it take to run a 150 FTE company?

Two companies. Both with 150 employees. One has a finance team of 10. The other? Just one lonely soul. 

How on earth can that work?

It seems unreasonable at the first glance. But it’s not just about headcount. It’s about mindset, tools and whether the founder saw finance as a strategic partner… or something to “sort out later.”

The one-person finance “team” often isn’t just surviving, they are actually quite successful. Why?

✅ Automation was introduced before the first invoice was sent, and not when there were hunderds of them, that cannot be anymore handled manually.

✅ Systems were built to scale and communicate, not patched together during a panic at the year-end.

✅ Financial insight was treated as mission-critical for steering the company, not “nice to have when we’re bigger.”

Meanwhile, the bigger team would still be printing PDFs and manually insert payments.

This isn’t to glorify under-resourced finance heroes (those working in finance get goose-pimples when hearing "busy-season"). But it does show how early investment in the right tech and mindset can do wonders.

So, what’s the right finance team size at 150 people? Somewhere between one and ten… but probably closer to “it depends”!