Unless you have £20,000 to spend, its unlikely you will get everything you need from a single piece of software. So how much functionality do you require your accounts system to have, and how much do you export to excel?

On one level, you spend as much as you can in order to get as much out of your accounts as possible, using excel to tidy up the presentation. On the other hand, you can get a simple accounts system that copes with the basic transactions (reconciling actual activity to the bank for example), and export key figures to excel to provide all your management information.

Both are compromises, but I suspect the latter could cost a fraction of the former. Its worth thinking about, and could save you a lot of money…

Financial Accountants produce the raw data – they are the unsung heroes and heroines who make sure your numbers are produced on a timely and accurate basis, that debts are called in, and creditors appeased.

Management Accountants are a different breed. They look at the data and ask the “difficult questions”. Such as “Is this a good number?”, “Have we achieved what we thought we would, and if not, why not?”, and perhaps the most important question, “What is the implication of this data to our financial future?”.

Most businesses have Financial Accountants (for example the bookkeeper). I believe businesses need both kinds of accountant, and that it is very hard to find someone who can be both.

Who is asking the difficult questions in your organisation?