Management accounts

At Cottons, we make it our mission to look after your accounts. Typically, there are two types we can help you with – statutory and management.

First up, we’ll help keep you compliant – because if you’re an incorporated UK business, it’s a statutory requirement to submit year-end accounts. It’s good practice for non-incorporated businesses, too.

But it’s not just about ensuring you’re following regulations. The picture your accounts give you should be the building blocks for your business decisions: helping you understand what’s working well, where there are opportunities to improve, and what decisions you might need to take next.

Statutory accounts

Statutory accounts usually refers to the process of taking your annual business accounting records and consolidating them into a report before submitting it to HMRC and Companies House at the end of your business year. Your year-end accounts include vital information about your income, expenditure, taxes and profit and are fundamental to keeping compliant.

We’ll look after the whole process for you. We’ll gather and collate your data (whether from your own documented records or a cloud accounting system) and help you bring your bookkeeping up to date if needed, making sure we’ve got everything we need to prepare accurate and timely year-end accounts on your behalf.

We’ll be able to advise on how to make the process run more smoothly next time, too, and analyse your data to help you understand how your business has performed.

Management accounts

We’re not the kind of accountants you can expect to hear from only once a year to create and file your annual accounts. We’re interested in partnering with you to take your financial decision-making to the next level.

Management accounts means having instant access, often in real-time, to your financial information throughout the year – as and when you need it – rather than relying on looking back at figures that could be almost two years out of date!

The benefits of management accounts:

• Proactively take charge of your business’ finances
• Have up-to-date, transparent information at your fingertips to aid decision-making, support grants or funding applications or show investors
• Identify opportunities to streamline things and make savings
• Monitor your business’ progress as you grow or change
• Develop stronger valuations for exit strategies.

As management accountants, Cottons can be with you every step of the way, arming you with up-to-date information and advice to aid your decision-making. Many of the Cottons senior team either currently serve, or have served as Finance Directors or Chief Financial Officer (CFOs) in successful companies.

Management accounts can be part of a small business accounting package tailored to you, including payroll, bookkeeping and year-end accounts, and offer a more stripped-back monthly or quarterly reporting service.

Get in touch with our team to find out more about management accounts.