If you are an ambitious business owner, you seek to grow your business as quickly and in the most stable way possible. One of the best ways to ensure this sort of growth is to employ good small business accounting services. Our services are able to provide you with all the financial data you need to make informed decisions, while at the same time instilling industry standard accounting practices that will form the basis of your businesses financial structure, no matter how large your business grows.
As a small business owner, the most intelligent decision you can make is to hire experienced and trusted financial advisors to guide and teach you how to optimise cash flow and plan for the future. At SureBooks we are proud to be able to provide this level of small business accounting services to South African business owners. Our skills are tailored towards helping smaller enterprises reach their full potential.
In this article we will review a few of the most essential services we offer smaller companies. You will note that although we focus on helping small businesses with these financial tasks, each and every service discussed in this article are services that even the largest companies also need. By helping smaller businesses institute these practices now, we believe that we are setting them up for future financial success.
As you will see within each section of this article, we discuss specific core service. However, there are many sub-services that fall under each category, and when practised in unison, they are able to contribute towards a more effective essential service like cash flow management, business advice, financial reporting or tax compliance. In each section we hope to define the core financial practice and describe several of the sub-services that feed into each.
Small Business Accounting Services: Cash Flow Management
The first small business accounting service we want to discuss, is one of the most important to get an understanding of early on into your business’s operations, that is namely cash flow management. Simply defined cash flow is the process by which money enters and exits the business. Directly affecting the balance between the rate at which money leaves and arrives can be defined as cash flow management.
This flow of cash can be an incredibly delicate balance, that if disturbed can impact your businesses operations. If there is too much money coming into the business without money exiting, then your business is not allocating resources effectively which in turn will inhibit growth potential. However, at the same time if too much money is exiting – your company is making a financial loss.
Helping you find the correct balance is what SureBooks accountants are there for. There are a number of sub-services that we will be happy to provide you with in order to better manage your company’s cash flow. Let’s look at them below:
Forecasting
The best way to manage is to plan, and that is exactly what forecasting is. A good small business accountant will want to investigate your past and present cash flow, while at the same time looking to highlight any possible factors that may play a role in affecting the rate at which money enters and exits the company.
In this way they are able to establish a basic financial model that predicts how much money your company seeks to gain and the amount of money expected to be lost, to come to an accurate prediction of your future cash flow.
With this information accountants are able to tell the current financial health of the company and whether the present financial practices are sustainable. If they are not, our SureBooks accountants will help you implement new financial spending and saving habits to create a better forecast moving forward.
Financial Planning
The need for good and accurate forecasting practices plays into the next sub-service under cash flow management, namely, financial planning. Although you may be making plans already without the help of an accountant, this may be dangerous, as if you are not well versed or aware of potential economic factors that directly affect your business, your financial planning may be inaccurate and can lead to poor cash flow management in the future.
With SureBooks small business accounting services, our accountants will help you establish a financial plan that takes all possible factors into consideration. They will also look to apply all necessary principles of good financial management which includes clear and accurate goal setting, setting up a system to better manage expenses, look to highlight and plan for future risks – which includes the setting up of insurance policies and look to provide regular reviews in order to tweak the financial plan as needed.
Small Business Accounting Services: Financial Advice
For many new business owners, the financial needs of a business can be overwhelming. Understanding where to invest your money, how to spend it, whether your company has a strong cash flow and if you are tax compliant are all issues you may be expected to handle. Without understanding or even being aware of these demands on your business, you could run into financial and even legal trouble down the road.
Having someone who has experience in the field of business finance and who can provide effective and certain advice can be a powerful asset. With the help of our friendly SureBooks small business accounting team, you can rest assured that you will have a financial advisor, who has good financial experience. Furthermore, through our small business accounting services, we take guidance a step further, by working with you to practically apply that advice into good financial practices.
Let us review some of the ways in which we can provide you with trusted financial advice, when you hire one of our small business accountants.
Financial Consultation
There is not much need for us to define financial consultation. It is basically a service provided by those with experience in which they look to provide you with information and insight on specific financial issues to help you make better and more informed decisions moving forward.
When it comes to consultation there are many areas in which a SureBooks accountant is well versed in and will be happy to coach you in. From financial planning, as discussed in the previous section – to how to set up a proper budget, how to better manage risks, planning for taxes and how to provide accurate financial reports to name but a few.
More importantly we believe it is critical to highlight the numerous benefits of financial consultation, especially to newer business owners. These benefits include but are not limited to: Improved risk mitigation as you are more aware of the risks posed in our economic environment, how to be more efficient with your taxes, how to maximise profits, improved strategy for the growth of your company and overall better financial decision making skills.
Growth Strategies
Another small business accounting service provided by our SureBooks team, is to help highlight and define growth strategies. By implementing growth strategies in the early stages of your businesses operations you can ensure future financial success and be able to better control the growth of your business moving forward.
Your accountant will understand that growth strategies must be tailored towards your business and not all strategies will work with every business. There are many underlying factors to consider when deciding on what growth strategies will work best. From the industry your company is situated in, to where your business is geographically located, or where your business lies within the production cycle, these are all important things to consider.
However, there are still some common growth strategies that are important for most small businesses. These include Strategies on how to penetrate a market and retain a percentage of market share. How to develop your market by entering into more geographic locations or by simply servicing a wider clientele. Planning on how to develop your product or service overtime to keep up with market demand. Or how to improve your company’s marketing in a digital age.
Daily Operations And Record Keeping
So far, we have spent a lot of time in this article looking at how our small business accounting services can help you prepare and plan for the future. From financial forecasting and planning to the different ways our small accountants at SureBooks can provide you with financial advice. These services are of course, of great importance in helping your business grow.
But in many situations, you may also need help with day to day financial operations and are looking for a small business accountant who can help set up and maintain the necessary financial documentation that keeps your company running. Luckily at SureBooks we are well set up to provide you with all the help you need in this department as well.
Let us take a look at some of the more practical small business accounting services our team can provide you with:
Accurate Record Keeping
Accurate records of your company’s financial exploits on both a long and short term scale are incredibly important. Not only are these records useful in recalling transaction histories in cases of emergency but are also invaluable data points that can be utilised by our accounting team to perform all the other “big picture” services discussed above.
Record keeping includes a multitude of different systems and logs. From every transaction being recorded with dates, purpose and amounts clearly labelled, to reconciling bank statements with internal financial records as a surety check. Other important record keeping activities include ledger maintenance, preparing financial statements (made up of income and cash flow statements and a balance sheet), tracking expenses and even looking after payroll.
These are just some of the most important records a good accountant needs to keep track of. But in order to accurately track these financial records, an accountant must be sure to employ industry standard practices. In the digital age this includes using reliable accounting software – many times this software can help set up financial statements when the information is meticulously kept. They should also look to put in place strong internal controls that allow for the separation of duties but at the same time creates an approval process that holds those responsible liable for all financial activities.
Finally, when it comes to record keeping it is critical that your small business accountant keeps up to date with all regulatory changes and accounting standards. This is so that, if necessary, they can apply those changes to the necessary financial documentation. Ensuring that you are always compliant with financial regulations.
Small Business Accounting Services And SureBooks
In this article we highlighted only a very small number of the many important small business accounting services needed to run a company effectively. At SureBooks we ensure that all our accountants are able to provide these services and more.
So, if you are looking for the most trusted small business accountants in all of Cape Town then look no further than SureBooks. Contact us to discuss some of the other services we offer, and to find out how you can sign up and start making use of our expertise today.
