Interested in Offering 'Business Advisory Services' - But Don't Know Where to Start?

How good is your relationship with your clients?

One of our keynote speakers in our COVID-19 Survival Panel webinar for accountants on Friday, 14th August 2020, Amanda Gascoigne is an experienced Chartered Accountant.  She has been a small business owner for 21 years and had her own accounting practice for 18 years working primarily with SME clients.  She has pivoted in recent years and now helps small and solo accounting practice owners have better practices and better lives and also helps them have better relationships with their clients through her coaching and mentoring business exclusive for accounting practice owners.

One thing that Amanda realised while in practice was that a large proportion of her new clients’ previous accountants, weren’t proactive in selling them advisory services.  Their practice model was to simply provide the compliance services the clients asked for and they were hesitant to suggest value added services such as tax planning, budgeting and cashflow planning and business planning.

From speaking to hundreds and hundreds of accountants from all around Australia, Amanda has learned that the main reasons practices weren’t offering advisory services was that they didn’t know what to offer, they didn’t know whether their clients would be prepared to pay for such services even if they did offer, they felt a lack of confidence in “selling” such services and in many cases, they simply did not have the capacity and time to offer such services.

Amanda will share with attendees the types of services that accountants could consider offering to their SME clients over the next twelve months ranging from small, cost effective services to more elaborate, expensive services.

The Commonwealth Bank's Market Pulse Report has identified that “Business Advisory Services” has been identified by the accountancy firms that were interviewed, as being the “practice area expected to be most in demand in the next 6 to 12 months”.

If you're unsure as to how you can introduce “Business Advisory Services” into the product offerings offered by your firm to your clients and prospects, Amanda’s presentation on Friday should be of great interest to you as she discusses how you can improve your relationship with your clients through proactively offering Business Advisory Services to those clients.

Andrew Geddes, Joint Founder of FMRC (Financial Management Research Centre) consultant to hundreds of accountancy firms around Australia and, for 9 years, the chair of Greencross Ltd a Top 200 ASX company, is the other keynote speaker in this week’s COVID-19 Survival Panel webinar.  Andrew will discuss a number of key points relative to accountancy firms developing appropriate training and systems to be able to deliver Business Advisory Services and then outline the significant benefits that can accrue to accountancy businesses and also to your clients, if Business Advisory Services are proactively offered and implemented by accountancy firms.

You can register for this free webinar on Friday, 14th August 2020 at 12-noon AEST by clicking here.

Update on Crowd Sourced Funding

Anna Guenther, Director of PledgeMe, a Crowd Sourced Funding Intermediary, operating in New Zealand and Australia was the keynote speaker in our last COVID-19 Survival Panel webinar for accountants.  Anna supplied an interesting insight into the development of the Crowd Sourced Funding market in Australasia:

• PledgeMe has assisted companies to raise $50 million.
• 80% of investors were under 35 years of age.
• There has been some spectacular capital raises – one company raised $1 million in 10 minutes and another company raised $500,000 in 30 minutes.
• Experts are forecasting that, in 2025, $300 billion will be raised by Crowd Sourced Funding Equity Raising worldwide – this is a phenomenal industry that has some outstanding benefits for small businesses and medium-sized enterprises, especially when it is getting harder to deal with banks.
• In companies that PledgeMe has assisted, 50% of the founders are female.
• Great Crowd Sourced Funding campaigns feature:
  • Articulate how the money they're going to raise will be spent.
  • Companies wanting to use Crowd Sourced Funding need to have a good “crowd”.
  • 80% of investors in the companies that raise capital were current customers.
  • There is a need for good communications, using social media and traditional media, to promote the company’s activities.
  • Directors and the leadership team need to know their “crowd”.
  • Some companies have discovered that their local community might be interested in investing in their company, if the community “get it”.
  • It’s a good idea to encourage people to register their interest in the company’s products and services so they can be kept informed by newsletters and other promotions.
  • The company should set a date when it is going to go live with their Crowd Sourced Funding Offer Document and inform their “crowd” of this plan as early as possible.
  • The company should always have a “launch event”.
  • There is a lot of hard work involved in getting all the documentation prepared – but have some fun!

Companies have the potential to raise up to $5 million in a 12 month period from utilising Crowd Sourced Funding Equity Raising – if you want more details please visit the ESS BIZTOOLS' website > Crowd Sourced Funding Equity Raising > Learn More.

Early Stage Innovation Company status is the “cousin” to Crowd Sourced Funding Equity Raising.  Legislation for both of these ground breaking capital raising opportunities for small businesses and medium-sized enterprises were introduced to Parliament at the same time.  Early Stage Innovation Company status grants to investors the opportunity to obtain income tax benefits based on the amount of their investment and the potential to avoid capital gains tax on the profits earned from the sale of the shares, if they hold the shares for longer than 12 months.  The Early Stage Innovation Company status is directly targeted at young companies which have developed new products, processes, services, marketing and management methodologies and wish to raise capital to get the company into a market entry position.

In last week’s COVID-19 Survival Panel webinar for accountants Peter Towers, Managing Director, ESS BIZTOOLS, gave a detailed overview of the Early Stage Innovation Company processes.  If you would like to view the recording of the webinar featuring Anna Guenther and Peter Towers, please click here. 

If you'd like to know more about the services offered by ESS BIZTOOLS to assist accountants to introduce Business Advisory Services for your clients, why not contact us – please ring Peter Towers on 1800 232 088 and we'll arrange a personal discussion with you and your colleagues about the strategies that we suggest to enable you to be able to proactively assist your clients in a broader range of professional services.  Alternatively, you could register for a 30 day free Guest, no obligation trial of ESS BIZTOOLS by clicking here.

If you would like to contact us about any aspect of ESS BIZTOOLS' or ESS BIZGRANTS' products and services, please do not hesitate to contact us:

• Email:
• Telephone: 1800 232 088