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Is your accountant adding value to your business? 

Sophie Redman

By Sophie Redman
9 September 2022

Is your accountant adding value to your business? You’re chugging along, running your business and things seem to be going ok. You don’t really have a complete understanding of your numbers, how money is moving through the business and you tend not to hear much from your accountant.

You get the occasional accounting updates, so you know the reports are going in, the VAT return is going in, the self-assessment is going in, you’ve not been fined at any point and you’re paying the standing order to your accountant.

Your needs and requirements are being met, so you’re surviving.

But you have this nagging feeling that you’re paying your accountant a little too much every month for the work they’re actually doing.

You’d be much happier if they were more proactive, picked up the phone or responded to emails more often.

Cause if you think about it…

Is your accountant actually helping you grow your business or are they just helping you complete the necessary paperwork? 

You’re starting to question if it might be time to start looking for a new accountant.

But, can you really be bothered with researching, asking for recommendations and then talking to a load of firms or practices that are all trying to sell you the same thing?

You might as well stay in survival mode and stick to what you have, right?

WRONG

You could be thriving!

Rather than just surviving.

If you have aspirations for yourself and your business, you might be thinking that you want to: 

  • Be more profitable
  • Make more money
  • Grow your company

 

So you can spend more time with your family, be home on time for bathtime with your little ones or just have a night off without having to feel guilty or pull an all-nighter the next day.

 

Is your accountant helping you plan for this, so your profit allows you to enjoy your life more? 

Having a real understanding of your business, knowing exactly how it’s running, and having real-time access to your numbers and data, can really help your business thrive.

This is where your accountant should really be playing a pivotal role.

Accountants can do so much more than just help you fill in and submit the standard paperwork.

They can have a positive impact on your bottom line.

Having a good accountant however isn’t enough, they need to come with some additional benefits. They need to:

  • Be in the 21st century, which means they should be using cloud accounting software, that gives you real-time access to your data whenever and wherever you are (we recommend Xero).
  • Have a way of communicating with you on a regular basis. This can be physically meeting, over the phone, via email or video conferencing.
  • Be able to show you what they’ve been doing, transparency. You should have access to all your data. You have paid for a service therefore you should see what you’re paying for.

 

Real-life example.

We have a client who’s happily been with us for quite a number of years now.

They are a prime example of what happens when you don’t understand how money is moving through your business, when you don’t have full access to your data, don’t fully understand the data and where there’s no real relationship with the accountant.

To be honest, we didn’t get off to the best start when they came on board.

We set them up on our cloud accounting software, integrated a number of applications that would help them understand their business better, and would make running the business easier.

We were so surprised when we started getting multiple complaints from this client.

They just could not understand why we were doing everything differently.

We weren’t running their accounts the way they had been doing it themselves for many years and this was really frustrating them.

“Why are you doing it this way?! You’re not doing it our way!” 

What they didn’t realise was that we were doing it their way.

So where did the issues lie?

  • They had never been given full access to their data, so couldn’t understand their data when being shown.
  • They never had a full understanding of how money was moving through the business.
  • They didn’t actually know what running their business visually looked like.

Being presented with a picture of how their business was working on a day-to-day basis was a total shock for them.

They could, for the first time ever, see that they actually didn’t know how they were running their business the way they thought they had for many years.

They could, for the first time ever, see and pinpoint bottlenecks and issues that they didn’t think they had or existed in their business.

By coming on board with us at Linford Grey they gained full access to their numbers.

Full access to meaningful, real-time, up-to-date data to be able to make real-time decisions for their business.

This is the sort of value you get when you have a proactive accountant who is invested in you.

One that wants to do more than just help you file your paperwork, one that wants to see you every month rather than just once a year.

And this type of value is priceless.

 

Do you want to know where your business can improve?

Just like our client in the example, we can help you pinpoint the bottlenecks within your business, we can find opportunities to generate more profit and we can make running your business a lot smoother.

We can help you understand your business, inside out.

This doesn’t come at a premium cost, helping you run your business and getting the most out of it, is part of all our service packages.

We’re not your cheap as chips ‘£25pm and we’ll do EVERYTHING for you’, type of accountant. (They will eventually let you down because the service you need can’t be done for £25pm.)

We charge a fair, monthly fee, for the time and work we’re going to be doing for you, which starts at £350.

You can see all our costs on our ‘Service Packages’ page, we want you to know what you’re signing up for so we’re transparent from start to finish.

We invest in you so we expect you to do the same for us.

It’s like having another relationship in your life.

It’s teamwork but we’ll do most of the heavy lifting.

In our world, your accountant should be a valuable asset that is integrated into your business and they need to be an asset to you, not a burden or annoyance

 

Discover the difference!

If you think you’re just surviving.

That your accountant is just helping you with your paperwork and not much else.

And you really want to be thriving, really making something of your business. So you can spend more time enjoying your life outside of work.

Knowing how money is running through your business and where there’s an opportunity for you to make more profit and grow.

Move to the next level.

Come and find out how that would look for yourself and your business by booking a discovery call.

It’s 30 minutes, via Google Hangouts, with our MD Adam, you can see us and we can see you.

You can tell us all about your business, what you would like to achieve and what you’re currently lacking from your accountant.

Then we can give you our initial thoughts and run you through how we think we can help and make a difference.

There’s no commitment, no charge, just an honest and open discussion.

You can book a discovery call straight into our calendar via the link below.

We’re ready to do a fantastic job for you, can you say the same about your accountant?

Book a discovery call via our calendar below.