Help SMEs Plan For Success
Accountants Minute 472
Turning Business Planning into a Valuable Advisory Service
Planning for business success is a vital service that accountants, bookkeepers and business advisors can provide to their SME clients.
A few years ago, Andrew Geddes, joint founder of the Financial Management Research Centre (FMRC) and former Chairman of Greencross Ltd, an ASX-listed company, made some very relevant observations about the role accountants can play in helping SME clients navigate the challenges of operating a business in Australia.
He described accountants providing business advisory services as being similar to a “financial Sherlock Holmes” — developing an understanding of the business, its revenue, margins and cash flow, and identifying opportunities to improve its performance.
His message was straightforward: the work itself does not necessarily have to be difficult, but it requires accountants to invest the time to really understand their clients’ businesses.
Geddes also highlighted another important benefit of advisory services: developing and retaining accounting team members.
By taking younger team members to client meetings and involving them in discussions, minute-taking and project work, firms can expose their people to the relationship and advisory side of accounting. This can provide young accountants with a clearer career path beyond compliance and production work, while developing the practical knowledge and experience required to become tomorrow’s business advisors.
These observations provide an excellent introduction to planning for business success.
A Business Plan Should Be a Living Document
Planning for business success provides the foundation for preparing a meaningful business plan for an SME client.
But a business plan should not simply be a document prepared because a bank manager or financier has requested one. It should become a living document developed with genuine involvement and enthusiasm from the client, their leadership team and, where appropriate, other team members.
The accounting team facilitating the preparation of the plan needs to develop a strong knowledge and understanding of how the client’s business operates. The business plan can then become the cornerstone from which other planning and financial management documents originate.
Think of a business plan as a map for a tourist. If you do not know where you are going, how will you know when you get there? More importantly, how will you measure your progress along the way?
This creates an excellent opportunity for accounting firms to work more closely with their SME clients.
Every business — and indeed many sporting organisations, charities, churches and not-for-profit organisations — can benefit from planning where they want to be over the next 12 months, two years and five years.
Questions such as these need to be considered:
Where does the organisation want to be?
What are its financial and operational targets?
What resources will be required?
What risks could affect its plans?
What actions need to be undertaken?
Does the owner have an exit strategy?
These are conversations in which an accountant or business advisor can play an important role.
Where Do You Start?
Our suggested approach commences with a Think Tank Meeting attended by the client and their key people. Some SMEs may choose to invite their entire team. The objective is to encourage open discussion about the major issues confronting the business and its plans for the future. This can be particularly valuable because team members outside the leadership group can sometimes contribute refreshing observations and ideas that management may not previously have considered.
An agenda should be prepared before the Think Tank Meeting.
In our experience, the partner or senior manager responsible for the assignment should chair the meeting, while another accounting team member records the important issues and discussion points. Those notes can then be utilised during the development of the business plan.
This approach also contributes to the cultural development of the client's organisation.
Everyone involved should understand that preparing a business plan is not simply an exercise undertaken to satisfy a bank manager. It is about establishing a clear strategy for where the business wants to go and how it intends to get there.
What Should the Think Tank Meeting Consider?
The agenda can include areas such as:
✅ Business resources
✅ Profit analysis
✅ Market research
✅ Experience
✅ Customers
✅ Location
✅ Competitors
✅ Profit targets
✅ Work in Progress and job costing
✅ Stock control
✅ Suppliers
✅ Key Performance Indicators
✅ Team
✅ Marketing
✅ Sales
✅ Organisational structure
✅ Professional development
✅ Risks
✅ Implementation of the Business Plan
The discussion should ultimately lead to clear strategies, responsibilities, targets and an Action Plan.
The business plan should then be reviewed regularly — ideally as part of the leadership team's monthly meetings — to determine whether the agreed actions have been completed and whether changes to the plan are required. That is what transforms the business plan from a static document into a living management tool.
A Structured Business Planning System
The ESS BIZTOOLS Business Planning Package has been developed to assist accounting firms, bookkeepers and business advisors to offer planning for business success as a structured advisory service to their SME clients.
Rather than starting every business planning assignment from scratch, your firm has access to a comprehensive system and supporting resources.
The Procedure Control Form acts as the control centre for the preparation of the Business Plan.
The Business Planning Consultancy provides a detailed overview of the various aspects involved in preparing the plan, supported by articles dealing with specific business planning issues.
Business plans may also require input from external consultants and technical specialists.
The system provides for briefing documents to be prepared for these specialists so they understand the overall purpose of the assignment and how their contribution will be incorporated into the final business plan.
Ask the Right Questions
A significant component of the ESS BIZTOOLS system is the standardised Business Planning Questionnaire.
It provides a structured framework for discussing a broad range of issues with the client, including:
✅ Business and financial performance
✅ Current position and future objectives
✅ Resources and technology
✅ Products and services
✅ Industry and market analysis
✅ Customers and competitors
✅ Marketing, advertising and sales
✅ Suppliers, quotations and pricing
✅ Costings and distribution
✅ Staff development and training
✅ Human resources
✅ Debtors, stock and Work in Progress
✅ Benchmarking
✅ Budgets and Cash Flow Forecasts
✅ Monitoring financial performance
✅ Banking relationships and business funding
✅ Research and Development
✅ Insurance
✅ Business structures
✅ Board of Advice/Directors
✅ Legal and professional advisors
✅ Management
✅ Risk Management
✅ Sensitivity Analysis
✅ Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis
The objective is not simply to complete a questionnaire. It is to encourage meaningful conversations that help your accounting team understand the client's business and identify the issues that should be incorporated into the Business Plan.
Different Industries Require Different Questions
Business planning cannot always be approached with a one-size-fits-all methodology.
Different industries have different operational, financial and strategic issues.
To cater for these variations, ESS BIZTOOLS has developed industry-based Business Planning Questionnaires covering:
✅ Food Retail
✅ Manufacturing
✅ Trades Businesses
✅ Professional Businesses
✅ Other Retail
✅ New Technology Businesses
✅ Hotels/Motels
✅ Tourism
✅ Private Schools
✅ Wholesalers
These resources assist your team to conduct a more relevant and structured discussion based on the type of business being advised.
From Business Planning to Predictive Accounting
The business planning process should ultimately connect strategy with numbers. This leads naturally to the preparation of Predictive Accounting Reports, including:
✅ Budgets for all business operations
✅ Key Drivers, including Debtors, Creditors, Stock, Capital Expenditure, Repairs and Maintenance
✅ Cash Flow Forecasts
✅ Projected Balance Sheets
These reports help translate the strategies contained within the Business Plan into measurable financial expectations.
Management can then compare actual performance against those expectations and take corrective action when necessary. This is where business planning moves beyond the preparation of a document and becomes part of an ongoing business advisory relationship.
An Opportunity for Your Firm
Planning for business success provides accounting firms with an opportunity to deepen their relationships with SME clients. It enables your team to move beyond discussing what happened last year and start having conversations about: Where does the client want the business to go next?
It can also provide valuable practical experience for younger accounting team members by involving them in client meetings, research, planning, financial analysis and implementation.
That brings us back to Andrew Geddes' observation.
The opportunity is for accountants to become the client's “financial Sherlock Holmes” — understanding the business, asking meaningful questions, analysing its performance and helping management improve the good parts while addressing areas requiring attention.
The ESS BIZTOOLS Business Planning Package provides a structured system and resources to help your firm deliver that service.
SPECIAL OFFER
For a limited time, ESS BIZTOOLS is offering 75% OFF THE BUSINESS PLANNING PACKAGE.
Receive 12 months' access to the resources designed to help your firm provide a structured Business Planning Advisory Service to your SME clients.
The resources can assist your team with the entire process — from the initial Think Tank Meeting and Business Planning Questionnaire through to the Business Plan, Action Plan and supporting Predictive Accounting Reports.
Most importantly, the package can be utilised to assist your firm in delivering Business Planning services to multiple SME clients during your subscription period.
Subscribe to the ESS BIZTOOLS Business Planning Package and start offering Planning for Business Success to your SME clients.
FIND OUT MORE AND SUBSCRIBE HERE
Help your clients stop simply reacting to what happens in their businesses.
Help them plan where they want to go — and how they are going to get there.
25% Off – Limited Time Promotion
From 10 August 2026, ESS BIZTOOLS is offering 25% OFF selected annual packages for a limited time.
FIND OUT MORE AND SUBSCRIBE HERE
More Practical Business Advisory From ESS BIZTOOLS
Trades Industry Charge-Out Rate Calculator
Chief Financial Officer Services Package
Want to know more?
Visit www.essbiztools.com.au.
If you would like to have a discussion about how this concept of virtual CFO services can be supplied by Australian accounting firms please ring our Managing Director, Peter Towers, on 0418 190 181 and we will arrange a complimentary 30-minute Zoom meeting to discuss your firm’s position and to give you our advice.
We believe that this is the blueprint for the delivery of an enhanced range of services by Australian Accounting and Bookkeeping firms to assist SME businesses to add value to their businesses and to assist accountants and bookkeepers not only to attract but to retain outstanding talent who want to be involved in the delivery of “real accounting services”.
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