Management accounts
Automated management accounts, with a note a client can follow.
Minns closes each client's month in the books, then drafts the management accounts with a short note on margin, cash, debtors and performance for a person at the firm to check.
From a closed month
The pack starts from a closed, reconciled month.
A pack built on unreconciled books misleads, so Minns works only from a closed month. The close is a fixed workflow in the books engine, and it waits for a person at each approval.
- Rules, then the bank
- The firm's rules applied, payments matched to invoices, the bank reconciled to the statement.
- The checks
- Balanced, suspense clear, every line explained, no drafts left, VAT agreeing. A check that fails stops the run and says which.
- Approved, then locked
- A person approves the month and it locks, so the figures in the pack cannot quietly change after.
- Tied to the client's job
- For a firm's client the run sits on the period's job, and the review and sign-off stay with the firm's people.
The pack
Once the month locks, the agent drafts the same pack each month.
The agent drafts the pack from the engine's reports, in the same layout every month.
- Profit and loss
- This month against last month, the same month last year and the budget, with the year to date.
- Balance sheet and cash flow
- The balance sheet at the month end against the one before, and a cash flow reconciled to the bank.
- Key figures
- Gross margin, overheads, debtor days, creditor days and cash runway, by the same formulas each month.
- As a page or a PDF
- Kept on the client's file. Sending it to the client is a separate yes from a person.
In plain words
A half-page note says what changed, why, and what to do.
The note covers margin, cash, debtors and performance. The agent explains each variance with the ledger postings behind it, and writes one it cannot tie to the ledger as a question, not a story.
- Margin
- Where gross and net margin moved, and which costs grew faster than sales.
- Cash
- Where the cash went, and how many months it lasts on the forecast's central and lower cases.
- Debtors
- What is owed and how much is overdue, from the aged debtors report.
- Performance
- Sales against budget and against a year ago, favourable and adverse written as such.
Financial analysis
Two years of months and a twelve-month forecast sit beside the pack.
One month says little on its own, so the same books give the trend and the outlook.
- Two years of months
- Income, costs, net profit and month-end cash for each of the last 24 months, read from the engine.
- Twelve months ahead
- A forecast of income, costs and cash with a higher and a lower case, worked out by tested code.
- Filed history
- Turnover, profit, net assets and cash from the accounts at Companies House, beside the VAT sales for the same years.
Accuracy
Every figure comes from the books, and a person checks every pack.
The pack quotes the engine's reports exactly. Code does the arithmetic on top, with the working shown, and checks that the month's profit agrees to the balance sheet and the cash flow ends at the reconciled bank balance.
- Drafts until a person says final
- The agent writes the commentary; a person at the firm reads it, changes what they would say differently and decides when it goes.
- An open month is said
- A pack drawn from a month that was not closed says so at the top.
- Nothing estimated
- A measure with no reliable source is left out with the reason, never filled in.
Questions a practice asks
Straight answers.
- Who writes the commentary?
- The agent drafts it from the engine's figures, and a person at the firm reads and edits it before it goes anywhere. It is written as a draft, not as advice.
- Does it work if the client keeps their books in Xero or QuickBooks?
- Yes. The books are pulled from Xero, QuickBooks Online or Sage Business Cloud Accounting into the engine first, so the close runs on a complete, current copy.
- Can it compare with a budget?
- Yes, where the client has one in Minns: a budget by month laid against the actuals. With no budget, the pack compares with last month and last year and says so.
- What stops a figure from being wrong?
- The figures are the engine's own reports from a reconciled, approved and locked month. The derived figures are recomputed as code, and the pack is checked to agree with the balance sheet and the bank.
- Is it sent to the client automatically?
- No. Sending a pack to anyone is a separate yes from a person at the firm, each time.
Turn this month's books into a pack worth reading.
Watch the demo to see the books, the board and the advisory work together, or talk to us and we will run a month on the demo company first.