What is this?

Management accounts are the regular production of data that provides
financial and non financial data on the performance of the business.

Traditionally these usually take the form of a profit and loss accounts, balance sheet
and cashflow. They may also include key performance indicators (KPIs) and other non
financial data.

They are published regularly (usually monthly but they can also be published less
regularly i.e. quarterly or half yearly) to stake holders and managers in a business.

They are used by all types of businesses from small to larger companies. The quality
of the data is very dependent on the accounts / finance system in use and the
adherence to GIGO (garbage in garbage out). So management accounts are scaleable
to the business (and more importantly business owners) needs!

Why would you need this service?

For smaller businesses, the business owners usually judge business performance
on some key measures - such as how much money is in the bank, how much did the
business turnover.  The measure of the business beyond these basic measures usually
takes place one a year when the annual accounts are completed by the accountant.

So the production of regular management accounts provides key business data on a
more regular basis. This also facilitates other business functionality including budgetting
and forecasting.

Pre requisites

But before management accounts can be produced economically, the business must
have:

1. Books of account that are regularly maintained. Thus may range from a cash book to
a full financial system (for example Sage, MS Accounting 2008).
2. Understand the businesses key performance indicators. For a consultancy business
this would be the number of days charged in a period compared to total days that
could have been charged.

How can we help?

We can create and publish regular management accounts based on the format you
require, the regularity you require and provide some business advice on the basis
of what the data shows and to the budgetted cost agreed.