What Does An Accountant Do For A Small Business?

By Author: Contractor Unlimited
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What does an accountant do for a small business? They do a lot more than you might think! Far from just being the people that number crunch and do the maths so you don’t have to, they can help with many other aspects of a small business; from strategic advice right through to clever ways to boost revenue.

They can even help with improving general day to day business practices and leave you with a lot more time to deal with the core matters and decision making involved in running a successful company.

It might sometimes be easier to ask the opposite question – what DON’T accountants do! Hire an accountant from Contractor Unlimited and you’ll have a professional who can help give you more confidence and clarity.

What can accountants do for small businesses?
Help with launching a successful start up
An accountant can really help make all the difference to a new start up. It can be a stressful time, and you need to know that not only will your business make money, but that you can convince potential investors of this too.

They can help test out your ideas, look at start-up ...
... costs and make some potential revenue forecasts that can help build a strong picture of your business plans. They’ll work on your pitch, on your behalf so you can really impress a potential lender.

Help develop solid business strategy
It can sometimes feel like a minefield when trying to navigate your way through the daily running of a business. It’s hard to really know where to put your focus. A professional accountant can help you really figure out what’s important.

Together you can work to set financial goals and they can give you the tools to measure your progress. An accountant will also set KPI’s (key performance indicators) that will alert you to how your business is performing.

If things aren’t going as planned, any accountant worth their salt will discuss issues and try to find workable solutions as needed.

Help sort out cash flow issues
Balancing finances can be a very tricky business. Some businesses will fail because they run out of money and can’t pay their suppliers or their staff. If payments are too slow to come in, but expenses are too high then even a business that is very active won’t last for very long.

A professional accountant will know that revenue ebbs and flows and that business costs will fluctuate. They can help you work out what will affect your cash flow and work with you on solutions to help manage these types of situation. They can also help sort out cash reserves and negotiate spending plans that will ensure there is always a steady supply of cash in the bank.

Help support small business owners by listening to them
An accountant has a genuine appreciation of how tough it can be to be in business and, conversely how much that business can mean to you. They can help provide honest advice and reassurance, whilst managing money related stress issues. Believe it or not, they’re big on moral support!

Help manage any debts
Debt can be good or bad, but an accountant will help you sort one from the other. They’ll show you how to find the least troublesome and least expensive borrowing methods for your business. They’ll be able to advise you on how flexible repayments are and the best rates of interest for you. If you need to undertake refinancing, they’ll help you with that too.

If you’re in the lucky position of having spare cash, an accountant will advise when you should use this to pay back loans or when it should be reinvested into your business. A professional accountant will look at the needs of your business and work on a specific strategy that suits you.

Dealing with unpaid invoices
This is all about systems and the world has moved on. There are now simple and affordable cloud-based software that can take the headache away from you. They issue invoices, send chasers and reconcile them directly with your bank account.

A really good accountant will help you to set up your systems so that you don’t have to worry about being paid. There will always be some bad payers though – that’s life, so they will also be there with helpful advice on how to pursue these without upsetting clients. We have a longer article on this subject in our archives.

The final comment I would make on this point is a simple one. If you can have your bills collected by Direct Debit for repeat work – do it. Our payment received rate jumped well above 95% consistently when we made the jump. It is also a lot easier with the advent of services like Go-Cardless.

Write your loan applications
The joy of applying for loans is something that comes to most small business owners. It’s something that can seem very confusing and complicated. A good, professional accountant will help you create a compelling case that will hopefully win lenders over.

Offer smart budgeting tips
An accountant can help you produce an accurate, scalable budget that gives you real confidence to know the real cost of your business. They’ll help you with day to day budgeting and recognised what eats money (and what doesn’t!) You’ll start to see how much money you have to reinvest and also, what you can pay yourself too.

There is a problem with businesses – they tend to eat all the money. It often doesn’t matter how much you sell the money disappears in expenses. This is all down to human nature, so understanding that you should absolutely, definitely budget for an income for yourself. Always.

Set up your cloud accounting softwareand show you the benefits of technology
Most of your day to day business bookkeeping can be automated, so that expenses and sales data will come directly to your accounts. We’ve already mentioned the invoicing systems that can tell you what’s been paid, and what hasn’t. It isn’t fool proof yet and still needs a good oversight, but getting this right will save you a lot of time and money. Time that you can then spend on doing what you are good at!

There are lots of other automated systems they can implement for you, such as:

Cash flow dashboards
KPI tracking
Automated accounts payable
There are smart business software applications that mean many of the things that had to be done manually years ago can now be done automatically. An accountant can take away those distractions by setting up easy to maintain software for things like:

Time recording and staff hours
Point of sale
Payment taking
Customer services
Payroll
Invoicing
Here at Contractor Unlimited, we love automation. It doesn’t need to cost a fortune and can save you time and, in my opinion, reduce lost opportunities. Talk to a lot of businesses honestly and the number of quotes that aren’t followed up on is frightening.

Automate. Automate. Automate.

Lastly…inject some fun into your business. No, really!
The typical image of an accountant is the boring suited person behind a desk! These days a professional accountant is more likely to have had a much more varied background in finance and will want to be able to come into your workplace to see how you operate on a day to day basis.

The truth is, to be any good at this you have to love business. Personally, I sat there last night watching YouTube channels for a few hours on selling through Amazon, because that is what one of my clients does. I reckon, if he can find the time, there is about £100k a year in profit by changing what they do a little.

It really is easier than ever these days to find an accountant who can relate to you on both a professional and personal level too. They can make a world of difference to how your business is run.

Remember that when you’re looking for an accountant, try to consider someone who you can not only relate to for their skills and expertise, but someone who you can have full and frank discussions with. You need to like your accountant and be able to relate to them, too – and they need to be able to gel with you at the same time. Life’s just too short to deal with people you don’t like!

Why Choose Contractor Unlimited For Accountancy Services?
There is little better that getting a recommendation from someone in business that you know and trust, and Contractor Unlimited have an established reputation for providing a professional and friendly accountancy service across the North West of England. We try and demystify the process of accounting and finance and bring a human touch to it! If you’d like to learn more about the type of accounting services we can offer, then visit our website on www.contractorunlimited.co.uk for Accountants Warrington