Three ways your accountant can help grow your business

Until the day we stop calling ourselves accountants and opt for a more glamorous title (all suggestions welcome), there’s little chance we’ll ever shake the popular perception that we’re just ‘number crunchers’. 

But in reality, the people who balance your books at the end of the year can - given half the chance - play a huge role in helping you grow your business.

Here’s just a few ways in which your accountant can help you build your empire, while simultaneously keeping the taxman from the door…

 

Help with funding

If there’s one thing you’re going to need to grow your business, it’s money. Money to invest in a bigger team, new premises, innovative technology, more stock.

In minimising your tax bill at the end of each year, your accountant will help you build your bank balance little by little - but there are other ways in which your accountant can help you get your hands on cold hard cash too.

Setting you up with an invoice funding platform is one of them. Invoice funding allows you to sell unpaid invoices to a third party, to get money into your business straight away rather than waiting for your client to pay.

We recommend the use of Satago, a platform which integrates with Xero and offers a wealth of other cashflow-focused features as well as the invoice funding facility.

Of course, funding can also be provided by your bank. Needless to say, the better relationship you have with your bank, the easier you’ll find it to get business loans when you need them - so here’s another way your accountant can help…

 

Management accounts

Management Accounts are a monthly or quarterly set of statements prepared by your accountant, showing you an up-to-date picture of your business finances.

They enable you to measure your ongoing performance against KPIs (key performance indicators), and identify areas for improvement right across your business. Effectively, it’s like having an ad-hoc CFO on board.

Typically, a set of management accounts will include a profit and loss account, balance sheet, cash flow statement and a short report. Together, these documents provide a wealth of data so much more insightful than a periodic check of your bank balance.

After all, a healthy bank is little indicator of your true position if a raft of outgoings are in the pipeline.

 

Sector specific support

When you’re seeking to grow business, it’s worth aligning yourself with an accountant who knows your industry. If they’ve worked with businesses like yours in the past, they’ll have a unique financial insight into what works and what doesn’t in your sector.

At Inform, for example, we’re particular specialists in the fields of hair and beauty salons and creative/digital agencies.

With specific industry knowledge, detailed understanding of the economy and access to all your financial data, there’s nobody better placed than your accountant to help you expand.

We can help you identify new markets, assess potential new revenue streams, evaluate and adapt the structure of your business and put a strategic plan in place - all with the benefit of past experience that’s directly relevant to your sector.

Find out more about how we can help your business grow. Call us on 0121 667 3882 or email us here.