Management Accounts for SMEs
Preparing Management Accounts
The impact of external market factors such as increased competition, legislation or economical changes can have a greater impact on smaller businesses. This is often because they don’t have formal management reporting processes to help them spot issues and make informed and timely decisions on how to address them.
Management Accounts, unlike Financial Accounts, are not a legal requirement and there is no set list of what to include or how frequently they should be produced. It will very much depend on the needs of the business.
Equifino can support you with the delivery and interpretation of Management Reports for your business. This can be tailored to your business needs but can typically include:
What is Included
We offer a range of support with the creation, delivery and interpretation of Management Accounts for a wide range of SME businesses. This can be provided as a stand-alone service or as part of broader, more strategic financial support.
What to include within Management Reports very much depends on the nature of your business, its strategic goals and current position. The key thing to remember when creating a suite of reports is that you are creating a tool to help internal management team make informed decisions about the business going forward.
Management Reporting, unlike Financial Accounting, is focused on looking forward and the performance of the key areas of the business that are going to help it meet its strategic goals.
The following are some of the areas that could be included within a suite of Management Accounts:
- Financial Reports - P&L and budget forecasts, capital expenditure plans
- Cashflow modelling
- Sales revenues, pipeline values and conversion rates
- Debtor information
- Customer retention levels and Customer Feedback Scores
- Key marketing campaign performance
- Resourcing levels
- Team performance information
- Renewal volumes and rates if operating a renewal model
- Employee engagement scores
- Market & competitor information
Not every business is going to need the complete suite of reports - it will very much be dependent on its size and structure. The make up of the suite of reports can also flex in line with the changing focus of the business.
The frequency of Management Information reports will again vary depending on the nature of the business and its current position.
Most commonly reports are created monthly or quarterly in line with Board or Senior Management meetings, however, the frequency may change depending on the focus of the business. Equally specific reports might be created more frequently than the entire suite when an issue has been identified or the key focus is on one particular strategic area.
At Equifino we can support your business to create, deliver and interpret suitable management reports.
Whether as a stand alone service or as part of wider more strategic financial support we can provide the following:
- Creation of a suitable suite of management accounts that link to the strategic goals of your business
- Provide accountability around delivery
- Provide guidance and advice on the interpretation of the numbers in support of your management decisions.
Frequently Asked Questions
The questions below are just a few of the regular queries we have about Management Accounts. If you cannot locate your specific question, check out our resources section or give us a call, we are happy to help.
No. Unlike Financial Reports there is no legal requirement to produce Management Accounts.
That said, we would always recommend that some level of internal performance reporting is undertaking to help inform internal decisions.
What is included is very much dependent upon the nature of the business.
They should focus on key performance areas for the business and be aligned to its strategic longer term goals.
Examples of areas to include can be located in the information above.
No, there is not prescribed format. As with what to include it should be suitable for the internal audience that is going to be reviewing and interpreting them.
Larger businesses will create more formal reports for presentation at Board or senior management team meetings and templates can be located online. However for a smaller SME it could be as simple as running various reports from internal accounting and operational systems.
The key is to ensure the data is easily understood and accessible to aid interpretation and decision making.
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