Management Accounts

MORE THAN FACTS AND FIGURES

Just looking at a list of accounting facts and figures will only provide a limited view of your business. We delve much deeper when preparing your management accounts. We’ll understand your business – your pressures, opportunities and competitors and most of all, what you want to achieve. 

This means the management accounts we provide have much greater value. Our interpretation and explanations will help you determine if your ambitions are realistic and which areas you should prioritise to achieve them. Or, if we find there’s a problem, you’ll have a clear picture of what it is, how it’s happened and your options to remedy it and prevent it recurring. 

WHY REGULAR REVIEWS ARE WORTHWHILE

If a car only has an annual MOT check, there are all sorts of issues that could crop up in the meantime, including faults that affect performance and waste money or others that could compromise safety. Your Statutory Reporting is similar. 

You have to submit your Annual Accounts and Company Tax Return each year, but if that’s the only time you’re aware of your figures, you could be missing warning signs or opportunities. In addition, your statutory obligations only provide the information HMRC wants, which is not necessarily what you need to know.  

With our Management Accounts service, you choose the criteria and KPI you want us to target and analyse. You can also set their frequency to match your needs, for example, fortnightly, monthly or quarterly. And you can stipulate how you want the reports to present the information, so it makes the most sense to you. 

WHAT CAN MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTS REVEAL?

As we’ve mentioned, you choose the benchmarks you want your management accounts to cover. As a minimum, we would recommend a balance sheet, and statements showing your cash flow, income and expenditure.  

Regular management accounts could let you follow your profit and loss on a more granular basis, identify patterns in cash flow and check for irregularities which could be an indication of invoice fraud. They can also be useful in identifying unpaid invoices and unpaid bills. 

You could also track progress towards your sales target, find out which of your products or services are most in demand and identify sales trends. Regular management accounts can highlight peaks or troughs, so you could adjust your expenditure to help control cash flow.  

LOOK TO THE FUTURE

With regular management accounts, you’ll have a clearer idea of where you stand and can plan accordingly.  

You’ll see if your sales have plateaued, suggesting it’s time to invest in a marketing push. You’ll know if you can afford to hire new personnel to enhance your client offering and stimulate growth, or whether you can invest in developing a product or service to increase its appeal. And you’ll have a clear indication of what you need to put aside for Corporation Tax and VAT. 

Finally, keeping regular management accounts is a sign of a well-run business. They will reassure investors when you’re looking for financing and the information they’ll want to know will be ready to hand.