You load every system that holds the figures into one warehouse on a schedule, and agree the definitions once with the finance lead. The management pack is then produced from there. The P&L against budget, balance sheet view, cash flow and KPIs refresh on their own and reach the right people without anyone building them. 110 Analytics does this for established companies in Malta, typically turning over roughly €1M to €10M a year, alongside their accountant, never instead.
You will recognise this
If your finance lead has said any of these, here is what changes.
- The start of every month disappears into building the pack.
- By the time the board reads it, the month is long gone.
- Sales has one revenue figure and finance has another.
- The board asks a follow-up question and it takes days to answer.
- Cash is the number I worry about most, and the one I see last.
- The budget lives in a spreadsheet nobody else dares to open.
- If our finance manager left, nobody could rebuild the pack.
- Our accountant does the year end. The monthly view is on us.
Five steps, one person, every month
In most companies we meet, the pack is built the same way. Someone exports from each system: the accounting system, the CRM, the operations platform. They paste the files together.
They reconcile the totals that disagree, by adjusting until they match. They rebuild the charts. Then they email the pack, and by the time it is read the numbers have moved on.
It is skilled work, usually done by the finance lead or someone they trust. It is repeated in full every month, because nothing in it is saved except the final file.
The hours are the part you can count. Glen's own example: five people spending thirty minutes a working day on reporting by hand is fifty hours a month.
The costs you cannot count are harder to see. A pasted column one row out, a filter left on from last month, a board meeting spent on which figure is right. And one person the whole pack depends on.
Then there is timing. A pack that arrives well after month end describes a business that has already moved. A margin slipping or a customer paying later than usual may have been happening for some time before anyone reads about it.
What is a management pack?
A management pack is the set of reports leadership uses to run the business between year ends. It typically holds a profit and loss against budget, a balance sheet view, cash flow, aged debtors and creditors, and the operational KPIs the business steers by. It is produced monthly, sometimes weekly, and a shorter version goes to the board.
It is not the same as the statutory financial statements. Those are the formal annual accounts your accountant prepares and your auditor audits.
The management pack is internal. It can be laid out however leadership finds useful, by outlet, product line or customer group. It answers a question the statutory accounts are not designed for: what should we do next month?
The financial half starts from the ledger in your accounting system, the same ledger your accountant works from. The operational half, such as sales by channel, stock, projects and pipeline, comes from the other systems you run.
In a pack built by hand, someone joins the two every month. That is the part we automate.
What gets automated in your management reporting
We automate four jobs that need no judgement and should not take up somebody's morning. Each is a place where errors creep in when it is done by hand.
Loading
Every system loads into the warehouse overnight, on its own. Nobody exports a file. When leadership opens the pack in the morning, the figures are current to yesterday.
Reconciling
Revenue, margin, cost centre and customer are defined once, when the warehouse is built, so every report reads the same definitions. Bank and ledger reconciliations stay with your finance team.
Delivering
The pack lands in the right inboxes on the right morning without anyone sending it. The board pack prints itself from the live figures.
Watching
Flags are raised by rules, not by someone noticing: a budget line running over, a debtor past terms, a KPI marked behind. People decide what to do about them.
What goes into an automated management pack?
The contents are agreed with your finance lead during the build, because every business steers by different lines. A typical starting point looks like this.
A profit and loss against budget, by month and year to date, with the variance on every line. The transactions behind each line can be opened. A balance sheet view at the latest close, beside the prior period.
Cash: the position as the ledger records it, the movement over the month, and any forward view your finance lead defines. Aged debtors and aged creditors, grouped by how long each invoice has been outstanding. Customers past their terms are flagged, with the account owner named.
Then the operational KPIs the business actually runs on, next to the financials rather than in a separate file. That can mean sales by channel or outlet, gross margin by product line, pipeline and stock.
Finally the board pack: a shorter layout of the same figures, printed from the warehouse rather than rebuilt from the management pack. Leadership sees the whole business, and each team sees its own numbers through tiered access.
The pack, on one screen
What happens at month end?
Automation does not skip the close. Some figures are only final once your finance team posts the month-end entries: accruals, prepayments, depreciation, and the adjustments your accountant asks for.
The warehouse reads the ledger as it stands each night. It shows the month in progress every day, and the final position the morning after the closing entries are posted.
We agree with your finance lead which views are marked provisional until the close, so that nobody mistakes a mid-month figure for a final one. The close itself becomes the only wait, because the exporting, pasting and charting that used to follow it are already done.
Before the automated pack takes over, we check it with your finance lead against the version they built by hand. The first month you rely on is then one they have already tested.
Alongside your accountant and auditor, never instead
Your accountant prepares the statutory accounts and your auditor audits them. We do neither. We do not do bookkeeping, payroll, tax or audit work, and nothing we build replaces the ledger your accountant works in.
What we automate is the management view in between: the monthly and weekly reporting leadership steers by. It reads from the same accounting system your accountant uses, so the management figures and the year-end figures start from the same ledger. We read from it; we never post into it.
If your accountancy firm already prepares monthly management accounts for you, we do not duplicate them. We connect the operational data around the ledger, so the pack can show why the numbers moved, not only that they did.
Two jobs, one ledger
What changes, in practice
A distribution business in Malta sells to trade customers and runs an accounting system, a CRM and a stock system. The budget lives in a spreadsheet. Each month the finance manager builds the management pack by hand, with four people sending in figures for it.
- The finance manager spends the start of every month exporting, pasting and reconciling before any analysis begins.
- Sales reports revenue from the CRM, finance from the ledger, and the two never match.
- Aged debtors is a printout, so a customer drifting past terms is noticed at the next monthly meeting.
- The board pack is the management pack with pages removed, rebuilt each time.
- A board question about margin by customer group waits for another round of exports.
- The ledger, the CRM, the stock system and the budget load overnight into a warehouse in the company's own account.
- Revenue has one agreed definition, so sales and finance report the same figure.
- Customers past terms are flagged by a rule each morning, with the account manager named.
- The pack refreshes on its own and the board pack prints from the same live figures.
- The margin question is answered from data that is already joined, without a new export.
The ledger did not change and neither did the accountant's year end. The finance manager stopped building the pack and started reading it, with time back for the analysis the business hired them for.
A management pack built by hand, and from the warehouse
The output can be the same document. Everything around it changes.
| Built by hand | Produced from the warehouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Where figures come from | Exports pasted into Excel | Every system, loaded overnight |
| How current | As of the last rebuild | Current to yesterday |
| When totals disagree | Adjusted by hand until they match | Defined once, read by every report |
| If the builder is away | The pack waits | The pack arrives anyway |
| Follow-up questions | New exports, another rebuild | Open the line, see the detail |
| Board pack | Rebuilt from the management pack | Printed from the same live figures |
| Warnings | Someone has to notice | Flags raised by rules |
Your management reporting at the end of the first month
Implementation is the first month: three to four weeks from an accepted quote to a live dashboard.
Your systems, loading overnight
The accounting system and the other sources named in the quote, read into the warehouse every night.
A warehouse in your account
Built in your environment, under your account. No lock-in. If we parted company tomorrow it would keep running.
Definitions agreed with finance
Revenue, gross margin, cost centres and customer groups, written down once and inherited by every report.
The first live report
The part of the pack agreed as the priority in the audit, live and refreshing on its own.
A delivery schedule
Who receives what, on which morning, with tiered access so each person sees what they need.
How a project starts
- A data strategy callThirty minutes with Glen, free. You leave knowing what your fragmented data is costing you today, and whether 110 Analytics is the right fit.
- The data auditAbout three hours with Glen and your team, mapping the reports made by hand and the steps behind them. Nothing is installed. It ends with a quote.
- The buildConnections, the warehouse, the agreed definitions and the first report. Your finance lead's part is agreeing the definitions and the layout with us; the building is ours. Three to four weeks from an accepted quote to a live dashboard.
- The fractional teamAn ongoing senior team keeps the pack live as the business changes, adds the next report, and keeps finding the next thing worth looking at.
What we do not do
- We do not prepare statutory financial statements.
- We are not auditors, and we do not audit.
- We do not do bookkeeping or payroll.
- We do not give accounting or tax advice. Those questions stay with your accountant.
- We do not replace your accounting system or post anything into your ledger.
- We do not automate decisions. Judgement stays with your finance lead and your leadership team.
Glen Sultana founded 110 Analytics after a career built where the numbers move daily. Our people have run analytics for tier-one companies, S&P 500 firms and high-growth technology businesses. Glen is the person on the first call, and he runs every data audit himself.
- Built in your environment, under your account
- No lock-in: if we part company, it keeps running and stays yours
- Based in Malta
Straight answers
What is in a management pack?
Typically a profit and loss against budget, a balance sheet view, cash flow, aged debtors and creditors, and the operational KPIs the business steers by. The audit sets the priority; the full contents are agreed with your finance lead during the build.
Does automated management reporting replace our accountant?
No. Your accountant prepares the statutory accounts and your auditor audits them. We automate the management reporting in between, from the same accounting system, and work alongside both. Their expertise is the accounts; ours is loading, matching and defining the figures across every system you run, not only the ledger.
What is the difference between management accounts and financial statements?
Financial statements are the formal annual accounts, prepared under a reporting framework and audited. Management accounts are internal reports, produced monthly or more often, laid out however leadership finds useful. We automate the second, never the first.
How current will the figures be?
Current to the previous night's load. Month-to-date figures are visible every day, and the final month appears the morning after your finance team posts the closing entries.
Which accounting systems do you work with?
We work from whatever data your accounting system or ERP makes available, whether through an API, a database connection or a scheduled export. The data audit confirms how yours can be reached. We read from it and never post into it.
Will this change our month-end close?
No. The close stays with your finance team and your accountant. What goes is the work after it: the exports, the pasting, the charting and the emailing.
Can the board pack be automated too?
Yes. The board pack is a shorter layout of the same figures, so it prints from the warehouse instead of being rebuilt from the management pack. Nobody assembles it.
What happens to the person who builds the pack now?
The aim is to give them their time back for the analysis you hired them for. They read the pack instead of making it.
What does automated management reporting cost?
The work is quoted at the end of the data audit. The figure depends on how many systems you run and what the first report needs to do. We quote each business separately rather than publish a price list.
The pack, in plain English
- Profit and loss (P&L)
- Revenue minus costs over a period, showing whether the business made a profit or a loss. Also called the income statement. In a management pack it is set against budget.
- Balance sheet
- What the company owns, what it owes, and the difference between the two, at a single date. Formally, the statement of financial position.
- Cash flow statement
- How cash came in and went out over a period, from operating, investing and financing activities. Profit and cash are not the same thing, which is why the pack shows both.
- Aged debtors and creditors
- What customers owe you and what you owe suppliers, grouped by how long each invoice has been outstanding.
- Budget variance
- The difference between the actual figure and the budget on each line, so you can see where the plan and the business have parted.
- Financial statements
- The formal annual accounts, prepared under the reporting framework that applies to your company and audited. The management pack is internal and far more frequent.