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Carolyn Moir-Grant
With over 30 years of experience at Allstaff, Carolyn has been a guiding force in shaping the agency’s reputation as a trusted recruitment partner.
For a 31 March year end, the time to start recruiting finance staff is now, in October or November. Permanent hires need time to find, work their notice and learn your systems before the busiest weeks, so the search usually needs to begin before Christmas. Temporary and interim finance staff can be found more quickly, but the best people are booked early, so it pays to brief your agency in the new year rather than in March.
If your year end is 31 December, permanent hiring is no longer realistic for this year, but temporary or interim cover often still is. Below, we explain how we help finance teams across Scotland’s Central Belt plan year-end staffing, and what to include in your brief.
Year end compresses several big pieces of work into a few weeks: closing the books, reconciliations, preparing the year-end accounts, and supporting the audit. The deadlines that follow are fixed. A private limited company must file its annual accounts with Companies House within nine months of its year end, pay any Corporation Tax nine months and one day after it, and file its Company Tax Return within 12 months.
The problem is rarely the deadlines themselves. It’s that the same team is still running payroll, paying suppliers and chasing debts while year end happens around them. One absence, resignation or vacancy at the wrong moment can put the whole timetable under pressure.
March and April can be two of the busiest months given its close to tax year end, and an abundance of requests if there has been a spike in leavers the early start of the year.
Where we see year end go smoothly, the finance team has decided in advance which work will be covered by extra help, and that person is in place before the busiest weeks rather than during them.
Many organisations, including public sector bodies, work to a 31 March year end, and the payroll year follows shortly after on 5 April. That makes February to April one of the busiest periods for finance teams. The right time to start recruiting depends on the type of help you need.
When we agree a timeline with a finance team, we start from when the person needs to be settled in, not from the year end itself. Here’s an example for a permanent hire who needs to be in post eight weeks before a 31 March year end. The six-week search is an example only.
The second column shows why a permanent hire with a long notice period is unlikely to be ready for this March. In that case, interim cover now and a permanent hire for later in the year is often the more realistic plan. Our guide to hiring permanent staff in the new year explains how notice periods work.
For a 31 December year end, there are about six weeks left, with Christmas in between. A permanent hire who starts in time to make a difference is unlikely. Help is still possible, but the plan needs to be more focused.
We’d always rather be honest about what’s achievable in the time available.
The right choice depends on whether the extra workload is a one-off or a sign that the team needs to grow.
Our 2026 accountancy and finance salary survey sets out current permanent salaries and contract day rates for common finance roles. If you’re weighing up temporary cover, our article on temporary and contract staffing explains how to get the most from it.
Accountancy practices face a different pattern. Their busiest time is driven by their clients’ deadlines, especially Self Assessment, which for the 2025 to 2026 tax year must be filed online by 31 January 2027. If you run a practice, the same principle applies: decide in the autumn which work you’ll need extra help with in January, and brief us before the end of the year.
The quality of the brief makes the biggest difference to how quickly we can find the right person. For year-end roles, we ask finance teams to cover:
For a sense of what the roles involve day to day, our guide to what a management accountant does is a useful reference when writing a brief.
Our accountancy and finance team recruits temporary, interim, contract and permanent finance staff for employers across Scotland’s Central Belt from our Glasgow and Paisley offices. We’ve been recruiting for over 40 years.
If you’re looking ahead to a March year end, or need help with December, we’d be glad to talk it through. We’ll give you an honest view of what’s achievable in the time you have and the type of cover that suits the work.
Request a call back and one of our finance team will be in touch.
For a permanent hire, start the search in November or December so the person can serve their notice and settle in before the busiest weeks. For temporary or interim cover, brief your agency in the new year rather than waiting until March.
A permanent hire is unlikely to be in place in time, but temporary or interim cover often still is. Be specific about the work and the dates, and allow for cover to continue into the new year.
Temporary staff usually cover volume work, such as ledgers and reconciliations, under your team’s supervision. Interim professionals are experienced, often qualified, and cover a senior role or lead a piece of work for a set period.
A private limited company must file its annual accounts with Companies House within nine months of its year end, and its Company Tax Return within 12 months.