Organising the finance and administration function of a French SME

Between 10 and 50 employees, the finance and administration function of an SME (PME in French) usually grows by accretion: an assistant who "also does" invoicing, a founder approving payments from their phone, a chartered accountant (expert-comptable) who receives the paperwork at the end of each quarter. It holds up until the twentieth hire, a second site or the arrival of mandatory e-invoicing. This guide sets out a five-step method to organise the finance and administration function, split roles between in-house staff and outside providers, and set a realistic monthly calendar.

Quick answer. Organising the finance and administration function of a French SME means mapping six processes (purchasing, sales and collections, payroll, cash, tax, corporate housekeeping), deciding for each one who does, who approves and who checks, equipping the invoicing chain (receiving e-invoices mandatory since 1 September 2026, issuing them from 1 September 2027 for SMEs) and building a monthly calendar around the DSN (5th or 15th) and VAT (between the 15th and 24th) deadlines.

This article covers how the function as a whole is organised. The role of the finance director (DAF, Directeur Administratif et Financier), their background and part-time options are covered in our article on the DAF role and outsourced finance directors in SMEs; the control procedures themselves are covered in our guide to internal control in SMEs.

Organising the finance and administration function of an SME means turning scattered tasks into documented processes, each with an owner, an approver, a tool and a deadline. The goal is to make the function independent of one person's memory. The method we recommend has five steps:

1. Map the processes: what comes in (invoices, timesheets, orders), what goes out (payments, returns, reporting), who is involved.
2. Split in-house and outsourced work: what the team does day to day, what the chartered accountant produces, what an outsourced finance director oversees.
3. Choose the tools: invoicing, purchase digitisation, banking, payroll, starting with the e-invoicing platform.
4. Set the monthly calendar: month-end close, payroll, DSN, VAT, reporting, cash committee.
5. Track the indicators: around ten figures reviewed each month, no more.

Our view. In an SME of this size, the problem is rarely a lack of skills: it is the absence of a clear boundary between "entering", "approving" and "paying". An organisation is first judged by one question: if the key person is away for three weeks, are suppliers paid, does payroll go out, is VAT filed?

The processes to formalise first are those that commit cash or carry a dated legal obligation: purchasing and supplier payments, sales and customer collections, payroll, cash, tax and annual corporate housekeeping. Each should fit on one page: trigger, steps, owner, approver, tool, deadline.

Purchasing and suppliers#

The purchasing cycle starts with the order and ends when the payment is matched. The critical point is the approval to pay (bon à payer): an invoice is only paid once someone other than the person making the payment has confirmed that the goods or services were received. Our article on the digital approval-to-pay workflow details the circuit. Any change to a supplier's bank details must be checked by calling back a known number, never the one given in the request email.

Sales and customer collections#

The sales cycle runs from quote to cash. Between businesses, the agreed payment term cannot exceed 60 days from the invoice date, or 45 days end of month; if nothing is agreed, it is 30 days after receipt of the goods or performance of the service (Article L441-10 of the French Commercial Code). A flat 40-euro recovery fee is due for each invoice paid late. You still have to chase: our four-level customer reminder procedure provides templates.

Payroll#

Payroll relies on a fixed monthly cut-off date for variables, a consistency check before approval and filing of the DSN (déclaration sociale nominative, the monthly payroll return sent to social security bodies) on time. The standard calendar is described in our article on the employer's monthly payroll cycle.

Cash, tax and corporate housekeeping#

Cash is managed weekly, tax according to a monthly and annual calendar, and corporate matters around the year-end. For a SARL (limited liability company) or an SA, annual accounts must be approved within six months of the year-end, then filed with the commercial court registry within one month (two months if filed online), according to Service-Public.fr; in an SAS (simplified joint-stock company), the articles of association set the rules.

An effective split gives day-to-day processing to in-house staff, review, tax returns and year-end close to the chartered accountant, and analysis and decisions to the founder, supported if needed by an outsourced finance director. Each has a distinct scope: blurring them creates either duplication or gaps.

• The administrative assistant: receiving and sorting invoices, issuing sales invoices, first reminders, personnel files.
• The in-house accountant (often from around twenty employees): checking bookkeeping entries, bank reconciliations, matching, payroll variables, cash monitoring.
• The chartered accountant (expert-comptable): reviewing the accounts, tax returns, annual accounts and tax return package (liasse fiscale), advice on tax and social security choices, and depending on the engagement letter, bookkeeping, payroll and corporate housekeeping.
• The outsourced finance director: budget, cash forecast, dashboard, banking relationships, preparing financing.
• The founder: approving payments above a threshold, signing commitments, cash decisions.

In-house versus outsourced split by company size#

These thresholds are indicative. The number of documents per month, the number of bank accounts and payroll complexity (variable hours, collective agreements, multiple sites) matter more than headcount.

Trade-off. Hire an in-house accountant or outsource more? Hiring makes sense when volume is steady and detailed knowledge of operations (inventory, projects, recharges) adds real value. Outsourcing is preferable when the workload is irregular, dependence on one person is high, or the expertise needed (complex payroll, tax) does not justify a full-time role. Our outsourced administrative management service covers exactly this middle ground.

Segregating duties in a small team means ensuring that no single person can, alone, create a supplier, record an invoice and trigger the payment. With two or three people, this is achieved by combining roles differently and reserving final approval for the founder or the chartered accountant.

A few simple rules cover most of it:

• Dual approval of transfers above a threshold set in writing, through online banking permissions.
• Creating and editing suppliers reserved for someone who does not pay.
• Bank reconciliation performed or reviewed by someone who did not enter the payments.
• Named access to tools, never shared passwords, access review at every departure.
• Written delegations: who can commit what, up to what amount.

These basic principles do not replace a full internal control framework, described in our article on internal control in SMEs, nor the wire transfer anti-fraud protocol we recommend to every SME.

The underestimated risk. The most reliable person on the team is often the one holding every access right, precisely because they are trusted. The risk is not only fraud: it is also undetected error and paralysis when they are away. Spreading access also protects the employee.

Tools should be chosen starting from the invoicing chain, because mandatory e-invoicing now dictates its format and platform. Next come purchase digitisation, bank connection, payroll and, last, the dashboard.

The reform calendar, as presented by impots.gouv.fr (the French tax authority), is as follows:

• Since 1 September 2026, all businesses subject to VAT must be able to receive electronic invoices.
• From 1 September 2026, large companies and mid-sized companies (ETI) must also issue them.
• From 1 September 2027, the issuing obligation extends to SMEs, very small businesses and micro-businesses.

An SME with 10 to 50 employees therefore already receives e-invoices from its large suppliers and will have to issue its own from 1 September 2027. Key dates and special cases are gathered in our 2026-2027 e-invoicing calendar.

In practice. A common mistake is stacking tools bought separately. Before signing up for anything, draw the flow of one invoice end to end and check that it is entered only once. Our finance digital transformation engagement starts from that diagram.

The monthly calendar is built around three fixed external deadlines: the DSN (5th or 15th of the following month), VAT under the standard real regime (between the 15th and 24th of the following month) and, for payroll, the salary payment date. Month-end close and reporting fit around them.

The official rules to know:

• DSN: the 5th of the following month for companies with at least 50 employees that pay salaries during the month worked; the 15th of the following month for companies with fewer than 50 employees, and for those with 50 or more that pay salaries the following month, according to Service-Public.fr. Net-entreprises specifies that the deadline is noon.
• VAT under the standard real regime (réel normal): monthly return (form 3310-CA3) between the 15th and 24th of the following month, the exact date being shown in your online professional account; quarterly filing is possible when annual VAT due is below 4,000 euros.

For an SME with 10 to 50 employees, a standard calendar might look like this:

The weekly cash rhythm is described in our article on the weekly cash committee. To shorten the month-end close itself, the D-5 / D+5 method is detailed in our monthly fast close guide.

Points to watch. On top of these monthly deadlines come annual or quarterly ones (corporate tax instalments, CFE business property tax, tax return package, approval of accounts) whose dates depend on your year-end and tax regime: record them in a single calendar shared with your firm, rather than in one person's diary.

The indicators to track each month are those measuring cash, working capital requirement and the reliability of the processes themselves. Around ten figures are enough; beyond that, the dashboard stops being read.

Financial indicators:

• Available cash and 13-week forecast.
• Days sales outstanding (DSO) and amount of receivables more than 60 days overdue.
• Average supplier payment period and invoices awaiting approval to pay.
• Monthly revenue and gross margin, compared with budget.
• Total employment cost as a share of revenue.

Indicators of how the function runs:

• Month-end close time (number of working days after month-end).
• Number of missing documents at D+5.
• Share of supplier invoices rejected or flagged on the platform.
• Number of payroll corrections after approval.
• DSN and VAT deadlines met over the quarter.

The choice and presentation of these indicators are covered in our article on financial steering dashboards for SMEs.

Our view. Process indicators are the most neglected, and they are the ones that signal problems. A close that slips from D+8 to D+15, missing documents piling up: these are signs that someone is overloaded or that a process is no longer followed, well before the error shows up in the annual accounts.

• Organising the finance and administration function means giving each process an owner, an approver, a tool and a deadline.
• Six processes come first: purchasing, sales and collections, payroll, cash, tax, corporate housekeeping.
• The in-house versus outsourced split depends more on document volume and payroll complexity than on headcount.
• No one should be able, alone, to create a supplier, record its invoice and pay it.
• Receiving e-invoices has been mandatory since 1 September 2026; issuing them becomes mandatory for SMEs on 1 September 2027.
• The monthly calendar is set around the DSN (5th or 15th of the following month) and VAT (between the 15th and 24th under the standard real regime).
• Around ten indicators are enough, including several on how the function itself runs.