I’m tearing my hair out, and going pencil-snapping crazy. Another entrepreneur is on my TV pitching their business without basic financial information to hand. I see this mistake time-and-time again – old-school accounting services are failing small businesses.
The thing is, accounting services just haven’t moved with the times. Small businesses have been provided with nothing more than end of year figures for far too long. It’s a service that says: “Whoops, seems like your profit margin reduced last year, or you shouldn’t have spent quite so much on stock, but it’s too late to do anything about that now”.
And quite frankly it isn’t good enough. The thing is small businesses just aren’t aware that they can actually ask for more. Hours poring over your books at the dead of night, with nothing better than a calculator and an excel spreadsheet to hand, is a thing of the past – it’s just everyone forgot to tell the small business owner.
So I’m telling you now; enough is enough. Say no to accounting services from the Jurassic era and introduce something cost effective, strategic and downright sensible.
Your accountant should be central to your business, they should be taking care of all the numbers, not just profit and turnover, absolutely every single last penny. Cashflow, management reports, data entry for receipts, VAT returns, invoices, POs (purchase orders) – you name it, it’s your accountant’s responsibility.
And, if your accountant doesn’t see this as being a part of their remit they need to up their game. You’re the customer and you specify the service. And, just to be clear, you shouldn’t be getting charged extra for the above, it should be part of a standard annual fee. Don’t fall victim to the smart talk; demand more for your money, you are more than entitled to.
If your accountant isn’t playing the role of financial director, you’re simply not getting the service you’re paying for. They should be able to offer expert advice. And – at the risk of repeating myself – at no extra fee.
Seeing small businesses stumble at the first funding hurdle should be a thing of the past. If you’re not finding it simple to access funding, or to understand your bottom line on a real-time basis, you need to be challenging your accountant as to why this is the case. Remember they work for you, not the other way round.
So, have a think about whether or not you’re getting what you need from your accountant. And please hurry because I’m fast running out of pencils to snap.
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