Finance Management and duties of a Finance Manager

Finance Management is a wider term which includes and deals with accounts, economics and finance matters. To manage finance is to have a clear vision of all financial matters involved in the job, to be able to foresee and plan things, to keep accounts and statistics of all figures involved in the project, to economise applications and resources and being able to create funds and project the results through budgets and forecasts. All these capabilities, in a nutshell, are known as finance management.

Who is a Finance Manager
A Finance Manager is one entrusted with the finance matters of the company. He is supposed to look after all financial matters of the company and guide the management in solving all financial issues besides complying with all statutory & financial requirements of the company law board.

Duties and Responsibilities of a Finance Manager

• A Finance Manager is the head of finance department which includes accounts, costing and budgeting departments also of the company.
• He is to oversee and guide the accounts officers of all the above wings and act as a coordinator and head of them.
• The Finance Manager is directly under the management of the company and is responsible for all functions of the wings under him.
• He is expected to supervise that funds of the company are utilised properly for benefit of the company.
• He will look after all the accounts and get the Balance Sheets and Profit and Loss Accounts prepared timely.
• He will oversee internal auditing and is responsible for timely and proper auditing of accounts by Statutory auditors and AG auditors.
• He is expected to get prepared the monthly Cash Flow Statements and Budget Reports and provide the same to management.
• He is required to keep available all managerial information statements and reports as required by the management at any time they may want.
• He is required to guide the management in all matters dealing with financial involvement and keep them in touch with all financial matters of the company.

Some important functions of finance manager

Understanding Industry
A Finance Manager must, first of all, have full knowledge of the activities of the industry or business in which he is dealing. He should know the processes involved in the business and the financial implications of the business. Unless he is fully aware of the dealings, he can not manage the finances of the business.

Procurement of Funds 
Finance management requires timely procurement and creation of funds for the business activities. He should be well versed with various options available in raising of funds and should be able to take smart decisions regarding arranging funds either through issue of shares and debentures or through loans from banks and financial institutions, etc.

Allocation of funds with prudence
The procured funds need to be cleverly distributed among various requirements of the business. He should be able to locate the importance and emergency of situation among various demands placed before him and allocate the funds carefully and cleverly so that all requirements are met and the operations of the business are not affected due to lack of funds.

Profit maximisation

Profit maximisation is one of the most important functions of finance manager. A finance manager should aim at earning profit or increasing profit of the business. For this purpose, he needs to minimise the cost of production by smartly locating the points of excessive expenditure and wastages in the processes. Further, he should study the markets regarding supply and demand conditions and efficiently manage the stocks and sales to meet the circumstances.

Capital management
The Finance Manager should be well accustomed with the capital market, its swings and factors causing those swings. He needs to be always in touch with the latest trends in stocks and manage the stocks and shares of the company accordingly by involving in selling and buying activities smartly. His decisions can affect the capital involved very sensitively. So he needs to be very careful and smart. Distribution of dividends may also be sometimes shifted to investing in new stocks and shares instead of paying dividends so as to increase share capital and thereby returns to the shareholders.