Executive Finance and Strategy

Strategic Accounting

Companies use accounting to plan, implement and monitor their business strategies. Modeling and financial reporting are tools for developing policies and pursuing profits. Accurate bookkeeping and accounting provide a verifiable way for executives to ascertain the assets under their company’s management and to make sure that they fulfill their responsibility to investors. The company’s accountants and the finance director are responsible for ensuring precise records, safeguarding assets and limiting liabilities. They report financial results to senior executives and the board. Top management is responsible for understanding the information and executing the firm’s strategy.

A financial strategy is a plan to use assets and liabilities to achieve corporate goals. A sound strategy has a quantitative aspect. Accountants provide data to show managers changes in costs, income, profits, net assets and cash flows – all of which indicate a strategy’s direction and status. A company can manage its strategy with an operational approach or a structural approach. An “operational financial strategy” uses models and measures to plan and report data about fiscal...