Nexus Finance is the only talent marketplace on the internet which is solely dedicated to qualified accounting and finance professionals globally.

It aims to revolutionise the way in which finance people work and how financial projects within companies are serviced and delivered.

Freelance accountants, financial directors or those with a specialism set up a free profile outlining their skills and experience and will be paired with companies looking for financial expertise on ad hoc, long or short-term contracts, depending on business need.

Nexus said it aims to empower finance professionals to take control of their working lives, while unlocking a pool of qualified talent for businesses to access in a way that saves time and money in today’s fast-moving, post-Covid world of remote working.

The platform has been set up by Craig Hutcheon, founder of Hutcheon Mearns, and Adam Maitland, the financial advisory firm’s managing director.

With decades of experience in helping companies to build exceptional finance teams, solve complex finance problems and deliver focused growth strategies, the entrepreneurial pair spotted a gap in the market which Nexus has been designed to fill.

Craig Hutcheon said: “With automation a major ambition for finance departments of the future, we were already envisaging a changing landscape for finance professionals where they will work for more than one business and where financial expertise will be in higher demand to augment existing teams.

“The pandemic has accelerated this, transforming the way we work and convincing businesses to embrace new ways of accessing talent, flexibly and more cost-effectively.

“We could see the significant market potential for creating an online network that would connect clients with qualified and rated freelance finance talent they could trust, while providing the opportunities for finance professionals to work flexibly and remotely. Nexus is the start of this journey to a more digitally-enabled, project-based finance solution. It’s important to stress that this is not a recruitment platform – it’s about creating a genuine and highly effective freelance culture within the financial world that offers businesses a new, flexible and cost-effective model for their finance function.”

The software utilises the Proteus platform which was launched by Xergy Group last year to help energy companies source people for projects in the transitioning energy sector.

Mr Hutcheon added: “We’d been working on our idea for Nexus for almost five years when we heard about Proteus. The digital marketplace within this product really appealed to us and we agreed terms with Xergy to use their solution and back-end programming to deliver Nexus. The result is a digital platform, dedicated to finance, that matches businesses with qualified and rated freelancers.”

Nigel Filer, COO at Proteus developed by Xergy, added: “When we first launched Proteus last year, we knew it was going to be a tool that revolutionised how businesses operated within the gig economy. To be championing the digital marketplace and gig workers at a time like this has always been incredibly important to us. We’re excited to see the work Nexus does with this product in the finance and accounting space.”

Adam Maitland commented: “Nexus gives companies access to the right talent at the right time, reducing their overheads and helping them to access the best mix of relevant skills to meet project deadlines.

“For freelancers, it offers access to a large pool of global opportunities from short-term projects to on-going, agile support. They can sign up to several projects at the same time, allowing them to build their earning potential and take control of their working life by choosing the work that’s best suited to them and their lifestyles.

“Nexus is a major step forward in this changing landscape for how finance departments and financial professionals will work and in the current COVID-climate, it couldn’t have launched at a better time.

“With an acute focus on cost-cutting and more qualified people on the market, Nexus will appeal to both businesses looking to build-in more efficient flexibility and to freelancers looking for a different way of working even if just for a short period as they search for their new role.”

Freelance professionals and companies simply sign up to the platform and are listed on the Nexus professional marketplace. They can then search for projects of interest or be found by companies, agreeing terms before getting started.