What is the Difference Between Financial Management and Book Keeping?

If you are one among those who relates finical management to book keeping then you need to re-think. In fact, there are many people who consider financial management similar to book keeping or often gets confused to differentiate between both of them. Perhaps, the difference between book keeping and financial management is a common inquiry among numerous sophomores who are eager to gain knowledge and have a career in the sphere of financial and business management. From an elementary perspective, the aspect of financial management is a massive arena, and much broader than that of conventional book keeping methodologies. It is true that most of the financial management programs incorporate the study and application of book keeping in their syllabi, but as a whole, the ins and outs, details of financial planning and management are monumental in quantity and relevance.

Generally, the book keeping procedure deals with the traditional methods of accountancy that primarily considers the debiting and crediting of various monetary transactions. On other hand, the different facets of financial management do not only deal with accountancy, but it even includes other core subjects such as economics, mathematics and commerce.

The procedure of bookkeeping is largely mechanical and often do not require any detail study. Instead of the analyzing, the bookkeeping majorly depends on the recording of the information. On other hand, FM once again also address to risk associated to business. Every business that has a well defined system or even a good cash flow can have a problem. Now through some tried and true methods of proper financial management problems like handling any sort of cash shortages can be prevented. The principles of management can at times help in preventing cash flow problems and deal with them more effectively.

Moreover, F.M as a whole can be broadly defined as the procedure of running the financial resources, including financial reporting, budgeting, risk management, and insurance for a business. In fact, it primarily refers on two key aspects - how you are really financing your business and how well you handle the money in the business. However, bookkeeping basically talks about the day to day operation of an accounting system. It majorly refers the recording of regular transactions within the suitable accounts. An accounting system defines the process of recognizing, evaluating, recording and talking about the financial information concerning the business. So, in simple words, the bookkeeping can also be considered as a subset of the accounting system.

Without doubt, financial management generally encompasses a number of crucial areas of business, but at same the business results are usually delivered in forms of reports. Consequently, talking in the present context both financial management and book keeping have their own role to play, but having a knowledge of both can always assure excellent employment in the market. Both of them are beneficial in terms of salary and also at context of job satisfaction.

Project Financial Management - 10 Key Steps to Streamline Your Business

Over the past decade or so we have been constantly bombarded with news about private and public projects that have either delivered scope at well over the expected budget or had to reduce scope to even come near to the original budget. Current thinking within project management methodologies only discuss the financial aspects of a project at a high level, leaving the "student" without any real way of working to greater understand the impact of their decisions on the financial results of the programme. In turn, the business case development is usually given minimal time and is a rushed job in the end. Investing in the correct people and time up front to review feasibility and secondly the business case is a must to ensure the total on target delivery of a project.

In the financial climate we are in, where budgets and costs are being cut, the time is now to ensure that whatever funding a company has available, that they invest it wisely - to do that you need to ensure that the project in the end - budget, costs and benefits are comprehensively reviewed.

With this in mind - using the Pathfinder Project Management Methodology as a basis, below are the 10 key steps to successful project financial management

(1) On new projects - invest time creating accurate feasibility studies and business cases, if this is a rushed job - in the end the results will deliver overspends.

(2) Review your project portfolio - are you carrying out the correct projects, are they nice to haves, are they being done for internal political gain - ensure each business case is robust and adds value to the future of the firm - spend time using previous experienced individuals to review and re-review the business case.

(3) Concentrate reviews just as hard on the benefits as the cost. In 80% of projects, once they are in, nobody wants to go back and review if they delivered as promised. So ensure from the start of the project you continuously check that as well as costs being on budget, that changes to your project have not altered your benefits.

(4) Cost cutting is not always the answer - allocate resource to "added value" projects - in today's world cutting heads is a an easy short term fix, do not throw out the baby with the bath water and leave the firm with projects in-flight with no experience to deliver them. Instead review your project spend and as in (2) concentrate on adding value.

(5) Workforce development - up-skill their financial management knowledge, develop staff in leadership, health and safety, motivation etc - so when you put a non-finance manager in charge of a large project, is it not about time they were given the financial know-how. Don't leave financial management to chance - develop your workforce.

(6) Break down the project into financially manageable sections. Too many projects work on the basis of a "pot of cash" - spend it as per the budget and if luck is with them, great! Instead take the "pot" and break it down into manageable sections - mapped to your project structure, that way you can see where budgets are by "workstream" and what ones are over/underspending.

(7) "one point of contact accounting" - too many managers will lead to budget overspend - following on from (6) above - The overall programme manager is responsible for the budget in total, at the same time each head of the projects parts should then be responsible for managing their part of the budget. This leads to one finance manager dealing with one project manager, ensuring a consistent relationship.

(8) Deliver focused and meaningful financial reporting to enable accurate decision-making. More is less - agree on what reporting is required from the project at the start and continuously improve until it is what the project needs to manage the programme of work. Because an accountant can deliver 20 pages of analysis a month to each project manager it does not mean that it's correct - save the trees - minimise the reporting and improve the decision making.

(9) Communication - have a strong relationship between your project and finance manager. Finance cannot be back office, they need to be part of the project team and be seen to be so, and therefore open and honest communication channels lead to no surprises.

(10) Finance should be made aware of all potential risks / issues and a probable cost - if a problem has or may arise warn finance early, finance will be limited to what they can do to assist "after the event".

All Business Facets Benefit From Healthcare Financial Management

With inflation taking a bite out of just about everyone's budgets these days, from single people, to families, to business and government agencies alike, it has become evident that quality healthcare financial management is increasingly important. With so many troubles related to the economy nowadays, and the uncertainty and turmoil that is being experienced by so many, providing good financial management in the healthcare sector is of the utmost importance for all parties involved, from patients to providers to insurance companies.

These days there are a number of financial management services for healthcare that provide specific solutions and have been specially designed for the healthcare organizations and the medical professionals involved in providing care for their patients. While there are many money management software programs and many common needs in the healthcare industry, not all of these solutions are right for every healthcare provider and so it is essential to find the right match in order to gain the best benefits for the situation.

Many of the healthcare financial management companies that offer professional money management services for the healthcare field provide basic, stock solutions that cover the needs and demands of most healthcare groups. These basic managerial solutions more than often will provide all of the functionality that is needed for the majority of healthcare providers.

This is because, in general, there is a great deal of commonality in practices and procedures throughout the healthcare industry, from individual doctors, to clinics, to large hospitals. These operations run under very traditional and standard practices and typically enjoy being able to implement standard managerial solutions, which are very effective in the overall business financial management needs of the organization.

At the same time, as with all companies in the business world, there are those healthcare organizations that have unique and special needs, in terms of the cash management products and financial management solutions that they need. For these providers, there are many healthcare related financial management solutions that can be custom tailored to perfectly match the needs of the business and help the company to reach any unique business objectives that have been set up by the managerial side of the company.

Healthcare related financial management solutions are often able to provide the healthcare organizations with significant savings. There are many clients of some of the best systems available that claim that they were able to save 20% to 50% by using the right services.

The complete healthcare financial management classifications that are available today are fully capable of dealing with every facet of money management for a particular healthcare organization. Some of these functions include medical bill reviewing, medical audits, claims, collections and many other crucial functions that are all absolutely essential to operating a solvent healthcare concern in this day and age.