Tom Atkinson, the former managing director of outsourced recruitment finance company CashFriday, has been appointed chief executive of a rival finance firm.

Keen Thinking, which trades under the names of Cash Simply and Payroll Simply, offers finance for temporary staffing agencies, payroll and credit control.

Atkinson left CashFriday, owned by Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance, at the end of June.

“I wasn’t able to direct things the way I’d like at Lloyds and, having tried to do so, I decided it was for the best to take those values and use them somewhere else,” Atkinson told Recruiter.

Keen Thinking was set up by Atkinson’s long-standing business acquaintance David Thornhill, who wrote CashFriday’s original payroll management system and also used to work for Now Recruitment.

Atkinson argues that Cash Simply and Payroll Simply are easier to handle than competitor services because they are managed right at the start of the payroll process rather than at the sales ledger stage, by which time errors may have already crept into the payroll system.

The company has raised around £200,000 in start-up capital from a combination of internal and external investors, of which Atkinson is the major contributor.

Keen Thinking has already signed up 12 customers.