Reports built around what your directors need to see each month, prepared from reconciled numbers and explained by a CFO.
Annual accounts tell you how last year went. Management accounts tell you how the business is going now, while there is still time to act on it. Our Finance Hub prepares them every month or every quarter for businesses with revenue from around $1 million to $50 million, from our North Sydney office.
Management accounts are the reports a business uses to run itself: profit against budget and last year, cash, the measures that matter to your business, and a forecast of what comes next. They are prepared monthly or quarterly rather than once a year, and they are written for the directors rather than the ATO. Ours are designed to be read by people who are not accountants, with a virtual CFO to talk them through.
Every business gets reporting designed for it, so no two packs look the same. These are the parts most of them draw on.
| Annual accounts | Management accounts | |
|---|---|---|
| What they are for | Tax returns, compliance and the year-end record | Running the business and making decisions |
| How often | Once a year | Monthly or quarterly |
| Who reads them | The ATO, banks at renewal, your accountant | Directors, managers, lenders and investors |
| Which way they look | Back at a year that has finished | At the year in progress and the months ahead |
| Format | Set by accounting standards and tax rules | Designed around your business |
Most businesses need both. Our business accounting and tax team prepares the annual accounts, and because the same firm prepares the management accounts, the two always agree.
A pack of numbers is only useful if someone reads it properly. Each month or quarter a virtual CFO reviews the results against budget, prior periods and benchmarks and takes you through what changed and why: margin shifts, cost movements and revenue patterns that need attention. The reports are written for people who are not accountants, so the directors can follow them, and the conversation turns to what to do next.
Management accounts are only as good as the books under them. We review your systems and bring the records up to date, through our accounting clean-up team where they need it.
We work out what your directors need to see and build the reports, dashboards and forecasts around it.
Our outsourced finance team closes the month and produces the pack, and the virtual CFO reviews it with you.
Reporting more often, adding entities to the consolidated view, or adding a board pack as the business takes on lenders or investors.
Where the books are clean and current, monthly reporting can usually start within two to four weeks. Where they need work first, it takes four to eight weeks. Management accounts are part of a Finance Hub engagement, a monthly fee usually between $3,000 and $15,000 depending on scope, agreed in a fixed-fee proposal before the work starts.
A first conversation is enough to see what you are getting now, what your directors need, and what it would take to close the gap.
Let's talk→Once a month we send our latest thinking on tax, business, and the moments that shape a year. Practical, considered, and written for people who would rather understand the why than chase the headline.
