Dealing with Financial Reports as a Manager

[als-uk]

Hello all, hope you are well. I have just got a role within a large corporate heading up an HR department in the UK (have always worked for smaller firms). I know that part of the role will involve looking at, interpreting and making use of management financial reports, P&L etc. This is not something I’ve had a lot of exposure to in the past. If anyone has experience in a large business, do you usually work with a management accountant allocated to your department or? If so, how does this tend to work, please? Please let me know if this doesn’t make sense or if you have further questions. Thank you in advance

 

[Scalloway]

I haven't any direct experience of this but I did used to work for a local authority Finance department. We had a team of managament accountants who were allocated to departments to work with them, preparing budgets each financial year and monitoring spend as the year went on. They also dealt with requests for fund for expenditure that wasn't in the budget.

I worked in financial accounting but once applied for a job as a management accountant. I was relieved when I didn't get it as the head of Finance wanted somebody who would go to the department with a big stick when budgets weren't being met. Not my style.

 

[Paul Norman]

I once worked as an FD in a large PLC. All my managers were expected to be able to read management accounts, but we provided training for them to do so - a one day course giving them the basic knowledge of what they were seeing.

Each manager would, in addition, have the opportunity to talk through the accounts with the accountant who had prepared them - who exactly this is will depend on the structures.

Of course, some companies just expect you to know stuff, but that is not reasonable. If you ask who will be preparing the accounts they ought to be willing to talk you through them.

 

[ctrlbrk]

Hello all, hope you are well. I have just got a role within a large corporate heading up an HR department in the UK (have always worked for smaller firms). I know that part of the role will involve looking at, interpreting and making use of management financial reports, P&L etc. This is not something I’ve had a lot of exposure to in the past. If anyone has experience in a large business, do you usually work with a management accountant allocated to your department or? If so, how does this tend to work, please? Please let me know if this doesn’t make sense or if you have further questions. Thank you in advance

Usually large corporate firms have regular training slots for various topics. One option is to talk to the training/development team and see if they can help.

Did the matter of financial reports come up during the interviews prior to you accepting the role?

 

[Deleted member 335660]

Whether they provide accountants or not, you should get to know the basics yourself. There are lots of good books, online courses etc and it’s not too difficult a subject.