41: What You Need To Know About Advisory Services Whether You Are Starting A Business, You Are Self
When most business owner are asked what their accountant or bookkeeper helps them with, you’ll most likely hear that they do their financial statements, which includes their balance sheet and income statement or profit and loss report, and they probably file their tax returns for them. Most accountants, bookkeepers, CPAs and Virtual CFOs provide way more services than this. Knowing what additional services your accountant or bookkeeper can perform for you could help your business grow and alleviate the stress you encounter when you try to do it yourself. When your accountant or bookkeeper provides additional advisory services, they are available if you have a situation that comes up in your business you are unfamiliar with and need professional advice. Accountants and bookkeepers work with a variety of businesses, and this provides a great deal of knowledge and experience with past business situations. They not only have these experiences under their belts, but they can then tie in your financial information and really collaborate with you to make sure your business goals are met, or even exceeded. In today’s episode, I am going to go over a few of the most popular advisory services your accountant or bookkeeper can help you with in your business whether you are just getting ready to start your small business, you’re a solopreneur, entrepreneur, small business owner, virtual online bookkeeper or virtual assistant knowing you have these additional advisory services available to you can help you manage your business when you feel like you are struggling and all alone, not to mention the headaches and stress they can help you avoid…
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Show Notes:
When most business owner are asked what their accountant or bookkeeper helps them with, you’ll most likely hear that they do their financial statements, which includes their balance sheet and income statement or profit and loss report, and they probably file their tax returns for them. Most accountants, bookkeepers, CPAs and Virtual CFOs provide way more services than this. Knowing what additional services your accountant or bookkeeper can perform for you could help your business grow and alleviate the stress you encounter when you try to do it yourself. When your accountant or bookkeeper provides additional advisory services, they are available if you have a situation that comes up in your business you are unfamiliar with and need professional advice. Accountants and bookkeepers work with a variety of businesses, and this provides a great deal of knowledge and experience with past business situations. They not only have these experiences under their belts, but they can then tie in your financial information and really collaborate with you to make sure your business goals are met, or even exceeded. In today’s episode, I am going to go over a few of the most popular advisory services your accountant or bookkeeper can help you with in your business whether you are just getting ready to start your small business, you’re a solopreneur, entrepreneur, small business owner, virtual online bookkeeper or virtual assistant knowing you have these additional advisory services available to you can help you manage your business when you feel like you are struggling and all alone, not to mention the headaches and stress they can help you avoid…
Welcome Back…I’m sure you know that you can contact an accountant or bookkeeper to help you get your financial statements in order and if you are looking for a tax preparer, they can normally do this for you as well. Today, I want to make sure you are aware of the additional services you can take advantage of aside from these services that your accountant, CPA (Certified Public Accountant) or bookkeeper may be offering. These additional services go far beyond making sure you understand what your Balance Sheet and Income Statement tell you about your business.
First, even though your accountant is preparing your financial statements, which include your Balance Sheet & Income Statement, and your tax return, don’t be shy about asking them questions about these services. If there is something you don’t understand, know that your accountant is there to answer those questions for you. Don’t feel ashamed about asking questions. Your accountant will be more than happy to explain how your business is doing so that you are able to make smart business decisions. Most accountants will assume that you understand how your business is doing if you don’t ask questions. I can tell you from my own experience, I really appreciate when a client asks me a question. I enjoy explaining financial information to my clients and I love knowing that I am helping a business owner fully understand their financial information. When you are a business owner, you need to keep in mind the saying, “There’s no such thing as a stupid question?”
Advisory services are services your accountant offers to provide you with assistance or advice when you need it about different areas in your business. There are many advisory services you could seek help with. Some of the most popular services your accountant may provide are reviewing contracts and documents to see if there will be any potential financial or tax consequences that could impact your business. They can help you gather all the necessary information to obtain a loan and even help you with a succession plan for your business.
With these advisory services, your accountant can help you develop Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) and metrics to track how your business is doing on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis and create a dashboard or reports you can access easily to track this performance. They can help you create a detailed budget with numbers that would reflect what your goals for the company are and let you know exactly how your business needs to perform to reach these goals. They can also help troubleshoot what is not working in your business if you are failing to meet these goals and can dig into why you may be having cash flow problems.
By working with your accountant, you can manage your debt and get a plan in place so that you know exactly which debt makes the most sense to be paying down first and how long it will take you to pay off your debts in the future. This alone can be a huge stress relief and it can alleviate the questions you may be having if you don’t quite understand how to best use your money when you have debt.
They can help you with your inventory. Many business owners have inventory, but they may not know exactly what impact inventory has on their finances. Accountants can help you decide how much inventory you should keep on hand and if you need to write off any obsolete or damaged inventory to ensure your inventory numbers are reflected correctly.
You might not think that your accountant would be able to help your business with technology advice, but they can offer advice on which technology would work with your particular business to help you save time and money down the road. Technology can be the key to helping your business remain as efficient as possible.
Another area business owners rely on accountants for advice on is employment. Your accountant can help you understand exactly how much your employees are costing you as well as compile the data you need to make decisions about hiring new employees. They will help you focus on which areas in your business you should hire employees that will allow you to meet your business goals so that you are not hiring the wrong employees. You’ll also know how much your future employees will impact your finances.
If you are a smaller business, you can work with your accountant, CPA or bookkeeper to provide Virtual CFO services. If you can’t substantiate hiring a CFO for your business, most accountants will provide these services for you. With so many of the accounting systems “in the cloud” it is easy to have your accountant assist you when you need them. They could even help you collect on your unpaid invoices if they are causing your cash flow to dip.
Overall, your accountant is there for you. They understand that being in business by yourself can be hard, and even more stressful when you don’t have family or friends who understand what you are going through. Most business owners don’t feel comfortable talking to others about what is bothering them. They feel isolated and wish they had someone to talk to when issues come up in their business, or if they have a new idea that they need sound advice on. Your accountant is there to listen to you and provide advice whenever they can. They understand how business works and many have been fortunate to work with a variety of different businesses which increases their knowledge and ability to perform these advisory services.
Make sure you get a copy of our 5 Essentials For Stress Free Bookkeeping. This guide is helpful whether you are doing your own bookkeeping for your business, or you are doing bookkeeping for multiple businesses by covering the five essentials every business needs to do to have stress free bookkeeping. Grab your free guide by going to https://www.financialadventure.com/5essentials, and if you have any questions about today’s episode, you can go to www.FinancialAdventure.com/Contact-Us and let me know. Did you know that if you are looking to outsource your bookkeeping, depending on the number of transactions you have per month, you could get your bookkeeping done for as little as $97.00 per month? I want you to know that I am here for you if you ever have questions, need help with your bookkeeping or would like more information about how much it would cost to have your bookkeeping done for you. I’ll also post a link where you are listening to this podcast so that you can easily contact me.
And, you know I’m going to ask…what’s at least one thing you will take away from this episode that will help your business succeed and grow your bottom line? If you need some accountability, join our PRIVATE Facebook community and post your action item, we’d love to support you.
