What is included
A pack of numbers nobody reads is worth nothing. Every element below exists because someone uses it to make a decision.
Profit and loss with real comparatives
The period, the year to date, the same period last year and budget where there is one. A number on its own tells you nothing. A number next to three others tells you a great deal.
Balance sheet and cash position
What the business owns and owes, with the debtor and creditor ageing behind it, so the profit figure can be checked against whether the money actually exists.
Proper cut off, not a raw trial balance
Accruals, prepayments, stock movement, work in progress and depreciation applied each period. Without them, a good month is just a month you happened to pay fewer bills in.
Gross margin analysed the way you sell
By product, service line, contract, job or site, using tracking categories in Xero. This is usually where the surprise is, and it is almost never where the owner expected.
A short KPI set, agreed with you
Four to eight numbers that genuinely drive the business. Utilisation, average order value, recovery rate, debtor days, pipeline conversion. Chosen for your business rather than a template.
Cash flow forecast, rolled forward
A forward view updated each period, including the tax payments, so you can see the month that is going to be tight before you are in it.
Commentary in plain English
A page explaining what changed and why, written for someone who runs a business rather than someone who prepares accounts.
A scheduled meeting
The part that makes the rest worth doing. A conversation about what the numbers mean and what to do next, in the diary in advance so it actually happens.
Who this is for
Management accounts earn their keep when decisions are being made frequently enough that waiting for the year end is genuinely costing you something.
Businesses turning over roughly a million and upwards
Below that, quarterly reporting is often enough. Above it, a month of drift is expensive and monthly accounts usually pay for themselves.
Owners with a growth plan or a target number
If you are building towards a specific size, a funding round or a sale, you need to know each month whether you are on the line or off it.
Businesses with a bank facility or investors
Lenders and investors ask for management information, often on a covenant timetable. Producing it reliably matters as much as the numbers in it.
Businesses where margin is the problem
Revenue is fine, profit is not, and nobody can say which jobs or products are the ones losing money. Management accounts answer that within a quarter.
If your bookkeeping is not reconciled monthly, management accounts will not be reliable and we will say so rather than producing something that looks convincing. The bookkeeping comes first.
How it works
The rhythm matters more than the format. A pack that arrives on the same working day every month gets used. One that arrives whenever it is ready does not.
- 01
We agree what you actually need
A conversation about the decisions you are making and how often. That decides the frequency, the KPIs and how much detail is useful rather than merely available.
- 02
The foundations get set up
Tracking categories in Xero, the chart of accounts refined, and the reporting templates built. Done once, so every subsequent period is fast.
- 03
Month end close
Bank and control accounts reconciled, journals posted, cut off applied. Usually completed within the first working week after the period ends.
- 04
The pack is prepared and reviewed
Numbers produced, checked against the prior period, and anything that has moved sharply investigated before it reaches you rather than after you ask.
- 05
You get it, then we meet
The pack a few days ahead of the meeting so you have read it, then the conversation. Reading a pack aloud in a meeting is a waste of everyone's time.
- 06
Actions, then next month
The meeting ends with specific things to do and who is doing them. Next month starts by checking whether they happened.
