Directors of finance and finance directors both handle financial considerations of an organization, but they have different concentrations. While some of their duties overlap, some of them do not, and this results in a difference in their overall salary.

Financial Managers

Financial managers are in charge of managing and recording expenses in a certain department or for the entire company, according to Study.com. They create reports at different intervals of the year. Higher levels of management then use those reports to see if the company’s revenues and profits are on the rise. Financial managers may also be known by other titles, like risk managers and controllers. They identify patterns in financial data and make judgments in the interests of the company based on those trends.]

Directors of Finance

On the other hand, financial directors are in charge of putting into place the policies that determine how the company will use the money. They have responsibilities like setting budgets for each department or handling strategic planning to help a company get ready for a certain economic environment. They also use reports from financial managers to find losses and change the negative flow of cash in a company.

Salary

For comparison purposes, the mean annual salary of a financial manager was $143,530, as of May 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS does not have specific data for the salaries of directors of finance, so this information is for comparison purposes only.

That said, the median annual salary was $125,080, or $60.14 per hour. Those in the tenth percentile earned $66,480 per year or $31.96 per hour, and those in the 75 percentile earned $173,920 per year or $83.62 per hour.

The average base pay of directors of finance is $142,876 per year, according to Glassdoor data. The additional cash compensation averages $26,181, and the range for additional cash compensation is between $9,401 and $57,269. So there is a lot of variation in the actual salary that either a financial manager or a director of finance could earn. Indeed.com puts the average annual salary at $100,208 per year, based on 6,094 anonymous salaries for director of finance employees and job advertisements on the site in the previous three years.

In a company with zero to 50 employees, the average base pay is $102,403, and the additional cash compensation ranges between $7,439 and $44,280. A company with between 201 to 500 employees, by contrast, has the average base pay of $130,894 per year, with an additional cash compensation of between $8,791 and $53,839.

Years of relevant experience can affect salary like company size. The average base pay of a director of finance is $115,107 per year in a company with 201-500 employees, and the additional cash compensation ranges between $8,029 and $48,358. That increases to an average base pay of $127,369 and an additional cash compensation range of between $8,578 and $52,381 per year. With between 10 and 14 years of experience in a company of the same size, the average base pay increases to $141,898, and an additional cash compensation of between $9326 and $57,752 per year.

Typically, the smaller the company, the lower the salary. Other factors that can affect average base pay and additional cash compensation include region and industry.