Let's do away with a common myth that Management accounts are for large organisations to support periodic board reports. Management accountants do a whole lot more and for all types of business. If you employ an accountant or an accountancy firm let me ask you to think about the service provided and the benefit you receive as the customer or employer.
In my opinion traditional accounting services tend to provide annual or periodic accounts and complete the filing of tax submissions, i.e. looking back at what has happened in a business. Does this traditional service provide insight into how a business is performing beyond the numbers? Does this traditional service provide analysis to understand the business direction or growth that could be achieved? Who benefits from this service, HMRC, Companies House etc.?
There is another way.
Employing a Management accountant or using the services of a firm that specialise in management accounting can help provide a powerful insight into business performance, support a forward looking approach through forecasting, create a clearer understanding of working capital requirements and how a business can be measured against similar businesses through benchmarking in addition to the traditional periodic reports. Small businesses may feel management accounts are not necessary but surely with less working capital behind them it could be even more important for a smaller business to understand its own performance, profitability and the direction the business is heading in.
At Radford Financial & Business Solutions Limited, we provide Management accounting services and are proud to hold the CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) practice holder certificate. If you would like to know more about how we can help support your business with Management accounting or other accountancy services, then please get in touch.
Neil Radford, ACMA,CGMA,
Radford Financial & Business Solutions Limited