Individuals who aren’t in the finance industry may find all the job titles floating around very confusing. In this article we are going to look at what finance managers actually do, other than manage finance in some way.

A finance manager’s responsibilities mainly revolve around providing finance support and advice to clients or colleagues in their organisation and help them make informed and sound finance decisions.

The organisations and workplaces that finance managers can work in are extremely varied and can be in both the public and private sector. These include Financial Institutions, Charities, Trusts, Universities and Multinational Corporations.

Most major business decisions are based on financial decisions and considerations. Companies need to know financial implications of any business decisions before they can be made, so Finance Mangers must help advise these situations and also make sure that all financial practices follow statutory regulations and legislations.

The role of a financial manager can be very varied, and the title of the role often confuses people so great care should always be taken to analyse the responsibilities in each organisation.

When a finance manager is employed in a large corporation, their role will usually be more concerned with strategic analysis, and finance managers working for smaller companies and organisations might only have to prepare and collect accounts.

Typical activities of a finance manager will include interpreting financial data and making recommendations, analysing cash flows and making predictions on future trends. They will often have to formulate long term strategic business plans. Reduce costs for the business by reviewing and evaluating opportunities, find new sources of income to manage the debt of an organisation.

They will also be expected to keep up to date with regulations and legislation for the finance world to make sure that the organisation is doing everything by the books.

There are obviously a lot of tasks and responsibilities not mentioned in this article but when you take a step back from it all, the role of a finance manager does boil down to various tasks that revolve around managing the finances for a given organisation.