If you are a new entrepreneur, you may not yet be aware of the importance accountants for small businesses can have in helping you better understand the financial aspects of running a business. You will soon come to learn that having a good understanding of your enterprises financial health is essential to your company’s longevity and success of your commercial ventures. When finances are left unchecked or not prioritised, it can quickly lead to a failing business.
On the other hand, you may just not be financially inclined and find that side of the business confusing, in that case employing accountants may be even more important.
We at SureBooks have spent a considerable amount of time establishing ourselves as specialists in small business accounting and have put together service packages catered especially to that demographic. In this article we want to emphasise the importance of our services by looking at both the role we play in small businesses with tasks we complete for you on a regular basis. Afterwards, we also want to highlight some of the potential consequences of not having professional financial help. In this way we hope this article helps you be more aware of the importance of accounting even in small businesses.
The Role Of Accountants For Small Businesses
As accountants for small businesses our team at SureBooks are professionals who have been specially trained and received qualifications in finance and accounting. This allows us to be an effective force when it comes down to rectifying a small businesses’ financial systems and the way in which they conduct their accounting practices.
Our role is to help you as the owner make smarter financial choices and plan more efficiently for your company’s future. We are also experts in spotting potential problems and helping you correct them before they become a potential threat. Although this is a broad overview of the service we provide, in this section we would like to focus on a few specific services we offer our valued clientele.
Track Accounts Receivable:
Accountants can easily create systems that track all money received by your small business. Without this knowledge, there’s no way of accurately understanding your business’s current financial health, or how much profit and loss to expect. By tracking your accounts receivable you can prioritise a sufficient cash flow to keep your business running without interruption and prevent overspending your budget.
Track Payable Accounts:
Accountants for small businesses closely monitor the amount of money going out. If you’re a business owner with lots on your plate, you can quickly fall behind on your bills, and this can result in a lot of financial stress. A professional accounting service will make sure all payable accounts are paid on time, helping you keep a live record of your current debts. This is extremely important to prevent your business from paying unnecessary expenses. Furthermore, by accurately understanding what you are spending each day, month, and year you can make better informed decisions, and learn where to cut out unneeded costs.
Financial Security:
Professional accountants keep a strict record of all your sensitive and important financial information and documents. This allows you to easily refer back to important financial documents when needed. You can protect your business from theft and mismanagement of finances. With the help of accountants for small businesses it becomes possible to manage your finances with efficiency and control.
Completing Taxes Correctly:
Did you know some financers spend their whole professional career learning how to process taxes more efficiently, and how to do them in the correct way? Tax law can be an extremely confusing and imposing obstacle for many new business owners. When taxes are completed inaccurately or not done to an industry standard your business may be audited or even fined. Our accountants for small businesses at SureBooks understand that this can be one of the biggest sticking points for entrepreneurs and that is why we offer detailed and professional tax help, ensuring your taxes are completed correctly every time. In this way you can avoid the stress that comes with doing taxes.
Accountants For Small Businesses: Challenges Small Businesses Face When Accounting Is Neglected
Now that we better understand some of the services, we offer at SureBooks, we can turn our attention to your business. Here we want to examine several common challenges that can occur for small businesses when company finances are neglected or not done correctly. Many times, you may not even realise that these issues are developing, but as they grow and are compounded by other financial challenges, you may slowly lose control of your business’s finance until it is too late.
Again, it is important to highlight that our accountants for small businesses are well trained to help you avoid these issues, or rectify the challenges listed below. We also want to impress upon you the importance of tackling these challenges early with the help of professionals. In doing so the issues are more quickly handled, and we can more easily give you back financial control of your business.
Losing Track Of Your Company’s Financial Objectives
Any business owner will tell you that have clear objectives is essential to running a competitive business. This is true for finances as well, having specific targets you want to reach in a pre-set time frame will help your company develop. However, if your company’s books are not completed accurately or not done in an easy to access way, you can quickly lose sight of the goals you set, as you will have no way of confidently tracking your progress. This in turn makes it difficult to manage expectations and can even result in a loss of investment.
You can lose track of the money flowing through your business.
Cash Flow problems can quickly occur if not properly monitored. Without a proper bookkeeping system, there’s no way to keep track of your cash flow, and your available cash might dry up before you’ve paid all necessary expenses, leaving you in a very stressful situation and reducing your profits. Monitoring your cash flow is necessary to help you predict financial issues in your business and plan your expenses accordingly for the month ahead. Your cash flow is a good indication of the health of your business, and understanding it enables you to plan ahead and make the best decisions for growth. SureBooks accountants can help you keep your books up to date, ensure invoices are paid and sent to clients on time to keep your cash flow steady. Keeping a good record of this information allows small business owners to foresee issues before they occur and take immediate preventative action.
You can run into tax issues with neglected accounting.
Neglecting your taxes can cause unnecessary problems that should be easily avoidable. Taxes become extremely stressful when they are neglected until the deadlines. If you try to rush through organising a huge amount of documentation right before your tax deadline it is very easy to make mistakes or even miss your deadlines. Doing so can leave you facing costly penalties for not following regulations. Accountants for small businesses are professionals at ensuring systems are in place to organise your taxes consistently throughout the year, so you never need to worry about filing your taxes and you can make the most out of your tax returns.
You may fail to separate your personal expenses from your business expenses.
This is a common issue that many small business owners face, and it can have detrimental effects on the growth of your business. Not separating these expenses can lead to major problems when your business is audited, and it becomes easy to overspend on your business accounts. It is always recommended to keep track of personal expenses and business expenses by ensuring you have separate accounts for each.
You could make mistakes when paying salaries.
For a business to run successfully, you need to ensure your employees are happy and can trust your management, and it doesn’t reflect on you positively if you pay employees late or make errors when paying salaries. Unhappy employees could leave your business, leaving you to deal with the stress of fast turnover. An accountant can help you implement systems that accurately track your staff’s working hours and make payments accurately.
You could lose money if you don’t invoice clients correctly.
Neglecting your accounting means you could overlook errors in your business that could cost you a lot of money. Losing track of your income and expenses means you could be invoicing clients incorrectly without realising it. You could be receiving payments late from your clients or charging them the wrong amount. Not only will this affect your income, but it could make your business seem unprofessional and clients could leave you with bad reviews, negatively impacting your business growth. Accountants for small businesses are skilled at setting up accounting systems that allow you to send invoices, and quotations to clients that are accurate and precise. Accountants can also create systems that allow your clients to make payment easily and on time.
You could lose money on product pricing.
Whether your business is product or serviced based, pricing is essential. If you price to high, you may lose customers who simply cannot afford your products or services. On the other hand, if you price to low you may not be able to keep up with expenses. For a business to thrive it is critical to find a price point that maximises your profits while still keeping customers coming back. The only way to do this effectively is to understand what your cost of goods are, as while as all other company expenses. Furthermore, these are the only basics and to come up with a perfect price point you will need to consider a wide variety of other factors. As you can see this is a highly complicated financial process that requires the help of professionals.
You could make poor business decisions when strategising.
Another common challenge that poor company financial practices can lead to is the inability to strategise for your future. When you are unaware of what you are spending and what you are making, if you do not have clear financial goals or you are not ensuring that you are being paid on time, it can become difficult to get a grasp on your company’s financials. In this case it is almost impossible to plan for your company’s future realistically and accurately.
SureBooks Accountants For Small Businesses
We offer quality accounting services tailored to your small business, allowing you time to focus on your business management without worrying over your finances. We offer payroll services, financial reporting, tax compliance and more to keep your business running smoothly. All of our consultants are readily available to offer expert advice to save money and grow your business.
