Monthly management accounts play a crucial role in the financial management of academy trusts in the UK. They provide timely and accurate financial information to support decision-making and monitor the financial performance of the trust. Here's an overview of the key aspects of monthly management accounts in academy trusts:

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1. Preparation and Timeliness

2. Income and Expenditure

3. Budget Variance Analysis

4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

5. Cash Flow Analysis

6. Balance Sheet

7. Commentary and Analysis

 

Monthly management accounts are essential tools for monitoring financial performance, identifying trends, and making informed decisions within academy trusts. They provide a comprehensive view of the trust's financial position and help ensure financial transparency, accountability, and effective financial management.

 

What can we offer?

 

Management accounts are often the only financial report trustees receive on a regular basis. Yet, the quality and quantity of the information varies across trusts.

 

According to our experience and reviews, the most common weaknesses are as below:

 

• Numerical information only expecting each stakeholder to be able to understand

• Management accounts are in the form of a system produced income and expenditure report, lacking detail or meaningful information

• No commentary, KPIs or graphs

• Too much or too little information

• No financial forecast

• Cashflow only provides historic data but no forecast

 

System generated reports may be sufficient to meet the audit requirements but they do not necessarily meet the needs of other key stakeholders.

 

We have developed an industry leading management accounts template which can easily be adopted to any trust. Once adopted to your trust, finance team can easily be trained to use it on a monthly basis.