Business Development for Profit Improvement >

Management accounting & Cost control

Building on our company’s philosophy of providing an enhanced range of services which offer real value to clients, Iain D Sim & Co are delighted to introduce a major addition to our Services to Business – Management Accounting and Performance Improvement.

Accounting firms have been offering Management Accounts for years, so what is different about our new service?

Management Accounting is an entirely different sector of the Accountancy profession to financial accounting. Clients are generally familiar with the most common services offered by CA firms such as tax, audit, corporate finance, compliance and insolvency / recovery. However, Management Accounting involves looking at businesses from a much more strategic and operational perspective, identifying how to improve future performance rather than focussing on the past results.

Consider the following questions:

  1. Does my company know the true cost – and therefore profitability – of its core products / services and customers?
  2. What are our key operating assets and value-add processes, and how efficient are they?
  3. Do we have an effective strategy for continuous improvement and increasing productivity, ensuring that we can remain competitive?
  4. How effectively does our company manage its cash and working capital? Is our cash resource employed where it adds most value to the business?
  5. Does the management team have access to the information they require to make better-informed business decisions? 

These are just a few of the areas that our new Management Accounting and Performance Improvement service will be focussing on.

How does it work?

Step 1

We find out what's been happening in the business. The process we use has been specifically developed to guide senior management teams through a comprehensive review of activities, with a special focus on: 

  • Core business cababilities, processes and customer value drivers
  • Review of strategy, short- and long-term objectives, and track record of achievement
  • Any performance improvement initiatives currently underway in the business
  • Effectiveness of costing / ERP systems and management reporting
  • The link between operational activities and financial performance

Step 2

Armed with the information from the executive review, we will prepare a report and recommendations, identifying causes for concern, areas for improvement and priorities for action. Presented at a follow-up meeting, this interactive session leads to discussion on specific areas such as: 

  • Why businesses struggle to deliver on strategy
  • Perceived versus actual profitability of specific products / services / markets
  • Definition and use of KPIs and Performance Measurement frameworks (eg Balanced Scorecard, Executive Dashboards)
  • How to motivate innovation and continuous improvement, and how to make sure they have a positive impact on the bottom line.

Step 3

Together, we create and deliver an action plan to help you drive performance improvement for your business. But we don’t just write reports; we bring practical solutions to the problems we identify and provide hands-on, sleeves-rolled-up support in implementing them.

We’ll identify which skills and resources are required to tackle the action plan, and will create a tailored package of support to work alongside the resources in your business. We ensure that the solutions will remain embedded within your organisation after the project is completed, but will ensure that you have access to any ongoing support your organisation requires.

We are passionate about the companies we help. As business owners and investors ourselves, we understand the challenges facing our clients and have a fundamental understanding that only your success will ensure our own.

I’m Interested. How to I find out if it’s for me?

Give us a call. We’ll arrange a no obligation visit to your company for an initial discussion to explain more about our approach and find out a bit about your business situation. Call us on 01563 525599 or e-mail us:

iainsim@idsca.co.uk
gillgroom@idsca.co.uk