SMEs need financial services now!
Business Advisory Services Update
SMEs are looking for accountants/bookkeepers to provide them with key information that they can use daily/weekly/monthly to navigate the future.
You might ask, “Can we move from compliance to external CFO service delivery?”
This was a question that Andrew Geddes, Accountancy Industry Guru discussed recently.
“SMEs need assistance with today’s and future problems!”
A question that an accountant/ bookkeeper could ask is, “Who are my more receptive clients and how can I help them by offering them with more services than I am now?”
Another key issue is “talent attraction and retention”. Team members are always wanting more interesting work. This is occurring in some progressive firms who have young people learning how to drive budget preparation, business valuations and develop the skills to be offering CFO services.
The first task is to fix the client’s bookkeeping. You cannot introduce a system that is going to be relied upon to make management decisions, unless it is properly maintained and the information is readily available.
Every business needs a plan – whether it’s a business plan or a document prepared from an annual planning meeting. The key is that the leadership team has discussed where the business is heading and has developed strategies for the future.
The Business Planning Document is the template that is used for the preparation of the Predictive Accounting Reports – budgets – cash flow forecast and projected balance sheets.
Every business needs basic information on a daily basis – KPIs – sales – number of customers – average sale.
On a weekly basis, a “weekly performance report” is a valuable document to assist the CEO/owner to make decisions based on what happened last week.
At the end of the month, the “monthly financial accounts” prepared with a comparison to budget report highlighting variances, together with a KPI report, will assist in highlighting areas of concern.
We will discuss this further on our upcoming webinar, “Scaling up Services”, on 11 October at 12pm AEST. Click here to register.
