Strategic Accounting, Not Just Reporting

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Episode 146: What if your accounting team did more than close the books—what if they helped shape outcomes before the month even ends? We explore how to evolve accounting from a reporting function into a true strategic partner that translates numbers into decisions. From building business acumen and storytelling skills to inserting accountants into high‑stakes projects, we lay out a practical path to unlock the insight already sitting inside your ledgers.

We start by reframing the role: compliance and accurate reporting remain essential, but the next level is connecting transactions to the choices leaders face. You’ll hear how to turn variance reviews into narratives operators can act on, when to reset baselines so forecasts stop lying, and how to use simple visuals and clear language to remove guesswork. We also talk about freeing capacity—retire low-value reports, streamline reconciliations, and focus on work that changes outcomes—so your team can show up where decisions are made, not just after the fact.

If you’re ready to move from ledgers to leverage, this conversation gives you clear steps to start today—train for communication, show up in project rooms, tell the story behind the numbers, and make accounting a catalyst for growth. Like what you heard? Follow, share with a colleague, and leave a review so more finance leaders can turn their teams into strategic partners.

Episode outline:

1. Evolve accounting from a reporting only entity,
2. Looking beyond compliance and good bookkeeping, and
3. Integrating governance and risk into strategy.

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Episode Transcript

Stephen McLain (00:04):
I have an important accounting team
capabilities. Question thisweek, is your accounting team a
strategic partner, or are theystill only a reporting entity,
providing little or no context?
I have higher expectations foraccounting than the traditional
financial reporting role thatthey have traditionally been

(00:27):
asked to do. Accounting has aunique viewpoint that can
translate the meaning offinancial transactions into
future implications for theorganization, instead of only
being historically focused.
Let's add the element of futurelooking to help the department
leads and strategic leaders makebetter decisions with the
limited resources they have.

(00:51):
It's about optimizing and betterstrategic planning. Please enjoy
the episode. Welcome to thefinance leader podcast where
leadership is bigger than thenumbers. I am your host. Stephen
McLain, this is the podcast fordeveloping leaders in finance
and accounting. Please considerfollowing me on Twitter,
Facebook, Instagram andLinkedIn. My usernames and the

(01:13):
links are in this episode's shownotes. You can also follow
finance leader Academy onLinkedIn. Thank you. This is
episode number 146, and I'll betalking about developing your
accounting team into a strategicpartner. And I'll highlight the
following topics. Number one,evolve accounting from a
reporting only entity. Numbertwo, looking beyond compliance

(01:36):
and good bookkeeping. And three,integrating governance and risk
into strategy. I like talkingabout capabilities and how you
can use those capabilities thatare at your fingertips as a
leader, especially the untappedones that will always lead me to
the accounting team. Accountinghas a unique perspective. They

(01:56):
have unique duties, but theyalso have exclusive insights
that often go unused when fullyutilized, accounting can look
beyond its usualresponsibilities of maintaining
the financial records, preparingreports and practicing good
governance. They can alsoprovide unique insights that can
help drive the business to moregrowth. I believe that you have

(02:19):
staff accountants on your teamright now who see things you
would like to know, if only youwould ask them and teach them
how to explain in everydaybusiness language. Last week, I
shared episode number 145, fpnaand operations, creating
powerful partnerships forstrategic growth. I talked about

(02:41):
aligning your fpna team withoperations so that they can help
each other solve strategicproblems easier. A well aligned
fpna team operates as a truestrategic partner, rather than
just a reporting function, theymaintain a forward looking
mindset using forecasting,scenario analysis and

(03:01):
sensitivity testing to guidedecisions instead of merely
reporting historical results,processes become streamlined.
Data grows more accurate, andfinance professionals
proactively engage withdepartment leaders to translate
strategy into measurablefinancial gains. Please go back
to listen to that episode. Incase you missed it. This week, I

(03:24):
want to take a look at ouraccounting teams to explore the
possibility of them becomingmore strategic in their duties,
which in turn will help theorganization be even better in
the marketplace. We of course,need accounting to be focused on
compliance, competent recordkeeping proper bank
reconciliations, goodgovernance, financial reporting

(03:45):
and many other essential taskswe need our financial
transactions to be recorded inthe correct accounts, which then
leads to proper financialreporting. The financial reports
we use, like the PnL and thebalance sheet, are critically
important to get right so weknow our financial position, but
we can go beyond this to extractcritical insights for leaders

(04:07):
from the accounting perspectiveand from a good governance
position. I'll share an exampleas a team, accounting can become
great finance storytellers tohelp explain financial results
in plain language so that nonfinance leaders can understand
better. A staff accountant cantranslate from accounting
language to business languagefor that department or team, to

(04:31):
what is happening and why itmatters and how it shows up on
the P and L and the balancesheet. To perform this function
even better, your accountingstaff must develop their
business acumen knowledge foryour particular industry and for
how each team performs itsduties. We should be moving
beyond just providing a list ofvariances to highlight why each

(04:55):
material variance matters andthen advise business. Leaders
how to make adjustments for thefollow on periods, or to make
changes to the overall plan. Ifwe find that a certain variance
is occurring each period, thenmaybe we need to update the base
in the future, we may have a newstandard. I challenge you to

(05:17):
connect the financials to thebusiness strategy. Don't leave
leaders guessing. A spreadsheetby itself can be visually
appealing to us as financeleaders, but to a department
head, it may be an ocean ofconfusion. Provide an
appropriate graph or a picturewith words on it, explaining
what is happening with words andlanguage that they understand.

(05:41):
Please subscribe to the podcaston the platform you are
currently listening to. Andalso, please subscribe to my
weekly email. One more tip.
Please view your CPE completiontotal for this year, we are
about to enter q4 so it's timefor many of you to get to the
required number for yourcertification. Set up a plan
today. I have worked infinancial planning and analysis

(06:03):
and auditing and in accounting.
All of these functional areashave a different perspective,
and they also have uniqueinsights into the facets of the
business. I want to see moreaccounting teams grow their
capacity and ability to help theorganization overall and
individual teams to improve. Notjust report what happened, but

(06:25):
start to shape transactionsbefore they happen. Be forward
leaning and forward looking atthe financials, to influence how
the PnL will look before monthend close to the benefit of the
entire company. Now let's talkabout helping your accounting
team to be more strategic.
Number one, evolve accountingfrom a reporting only entity. I

(06:45):
believe that the accounting teamhas way more potential to foster
growth beyond their normal dailyduties. What accounting does and
is expected to do is criticallyimportant. My degree is in
accounting, and I've worked inaccounting, so I know, but there
is more capacity to findstrategic insights from the
governance, risk analysis andfinancial reporting perspective

(07:09):
than what we are currentlyasking them to do. I know that
someone is saying that we don'thave capacity to do this. We
barely have time to do ournormal duties, which often
includes about two weeks eachmonth to do monthly close. I
would challenge that every time.
It's about how we use our timeand the capacity we do have. Re

(07:30):
look at what we are spending ourtime on, find efficiencies and
update, remove anything thatdoesn't add value. We can always
find better ways to improve ourprocesses we are focusing on the
most important value addedtasks. This is what finance
leaders do. Optimize your team'swork effort to add more value.

(07:52):
We all win when this happens,when becoming more strategic.
Begin with your audience. Knowwhat they need to be successful.
Answer the so what in yournumbers? Know the difference
between what a strategic leaderneeds versus what operations or
marketing needs in terms ofcontext, and translate your
accounting language intooperator or strategic leader

(08:14):
language to help them not guesswhat you mean. Now, going
forward, I like to seeaccounting personnel be present
in the important meetings andprojects. I have been assigned
to many project teams whileworking in fpna, sometimes there
was an accounting representativeassigned. Also. I always had a
prominent speaking andcontribution part for the

(08:36):
project as a rep from fpna, butthe accounting team. Rep was
often very quiet and contributedthe minimum. Now this needs to
change. I want to see accountingcontributing strategically to
high visibility projects acrossthe company. Of course, this
depends on the project type, butI want to see more contributions

(08:57):
and more perspective fromaccounting. I believe it will
add high value. Anytime you aska team to pivot or add more
value, there will be trainingrequirements so ensure team
leaders that you add trainingsessions to help your team
members think and act morestrategically. Number two,

(09:17):
looking beyond compliance andgood bookkeeping, month end
close has many opportunities topositively influence better
decisions on the accounting sideof month end close, the system
produces massive spreadsheetpages filled with data on
financial performance for thatperiod, often broken out by a
line of business, productcategories and actual products,

(09:40):
plus a lot more a massive datadump with endless columns of
performance data. But there areinsights in there. Our staff
accountants have the ability toshare special accounting
specific insights that can helpbusiness leaders. It might be on
how to more efficiently use rawmaterials so cogs are. More

(10:00):
accurate, or it might beinventory management that
creates a net positive flow tothe P and L statements, or maybe
a labor optimization issue. Allthese examples flow to the P and
L and then to the balance sheetas a higher asset or a lower
liability, or even a change inretained earnings. Again, what
accounting does is critical, soI want them to get it right when

(10:22):
following GAAP and any regulatedaccounting guidance that has
been codified, which happens alot. Let's go beyond just
following the rules to addingstrategic value in your work.
What do you see that no one elsedoes what can make a positive
difference in a decision? Becomethat avid storyteller in how you

(10:44):
present your findings, breakdown your work in an
understandable language. Let'snot keep leaders guessing on
what the numbers really mean.
Add high value context. It couldbe as simple as a sentence
highlighting a trend in youraccounts that would have
normally gone unnoticed. Numberthree, integrating governance
and risk into strategy, we needsenior leaders of character to

(11:08):
lead our organizations, and thisis why good governance practices
are so important to beintegrated into the culture. We
need to have systems and valuesthat hold leadership
accountable, which in turnbuilds more trust. Trust then
gives us lots more potential foroff the charts growth.
Governance does not need to besomething we do in the back

(11:30):
room, but in the forefront ofall of our activities. So make
it part of the culture and allof our activities. I covered
governance in my auditing seriesleaders want to know the risk
associated with decisions. Riskanalysis helps decision makers
understand possible consequencesfrom making the actual decision
along with other decisionoptions and in making no

(11:53):
decision. Not making a decisionis okay, but you need to know
what may happen from taking noaction? Does the competition get
even stronger in the market? Dothey exploit a weakness to gain
market share, or something evenworse? These areas I talked
about over the last few minutesare just a few important topics

(12:13):
to consider to engage in, to bemore strategic in everything we
do on the accounting side, Ibelieve we must connect the
financials to business strategywith every variance is a story.
But variances may trigger us tolook at financial relationships
or outcomes differently, but thedepartment head may not realize
it. So when you are reviewingvariances, let's add some story

(12:36):
elements to lead that departmenthad to review what happened to
further improve better decisionand outcomes. Now for action
today, how much does theaccounting team significantly
contribute to strategicconversations in your
organization? And I'm nottalking about just a controller
or a VP, I mean the teammanagers and the individual

(12:58):
contributors. Is accountingproviding context to their
numbers? Are you seeing apartnership between staff
accountants and leaders at alllevels of the organization, or
is it only a reportingrelationship? I want you to see
the value and opportunity topush your accounting team to the
strategic level. It will make apositive difference. I know it

(13:20):
today, I talked about developingyour accounting team into a
strategic partner, and Ihighlighted the following
points. Number one, evolveaccounting from a reporting only
entity. Number two, lookingbeyond compliance and good
bookkeeping. And three,integrating governance and risk
into strategy. There is anamazing opportunity for the

(13:41):
accounting team to provide moreinsightful strategic support for
decision making. I know it, andI believe it, your team has
access to data insights that canmake a difference. And if you
train them to become datastorytellers, so that they can
turn that data into actionableinsights, you may find that
business outcomes become morefavorable. There is value in the

(14:03):
accounts your team is managing.
We should not just be chasinglost pennies in our trial
balances, but contributing highvalue information with stories
to strategic conversations. Infuture episodes, I will discuss
areas that you can start toimprove so you have additional

(14:23):
capacity, but it takes effort todo it. There are opportunities
in month, end, close your otheranalysis work and how we conduct
ourselves daily, so that wefocus on what's important
instead of what makes usfrustrated. I hope you enjoyed
the finance leader podcast. Youcan find this episode wherever
you listen to podcasts. If thisepisode helped you today, please

(14:46):
share with a colleague untilnext time, you can check out
more resources at finance leaderacademy.com
and sign up for my weeklyupdates so you don't miss an
episode of the podcast. And nowgo lead your team and I'll see.
Next time, thank you. Applause.