Systems Assist Success!

Good day!

Welcome to this update on ESS BIZTOOLS ADVISORY SERVICES NEWS.

SYSTEMS ASSIST SUCCESS!

• For SMEs
• For Accountants/Bookkeepers/Business Advisors
• For Professional Service Firm’s Team Members

Over a four week period from 20 February 2025, ESS BIZTOOLS is presenting an overview of 20 of the Systems developed by ESS BIZTOOLS to assist Accountants / Bookkeepers / Business Advisors to introduce Financial/Commercial/Management Accounting Advisory Services which will differentiate your SME clients and your professional firm.

The benefits for SMEs are that access to the Financial / Commercial / Management Accounting Systems will give them a better chance of surviving and hopefully thriving in the difficult environment that SMEs are operating in.

The professional firms providing access to Systems to enhance business operations will be rewarded from the generation of diversified professional services.

The implementation of Systems to assist SMEs in Financial / Commercial / Management Accounting issues provides interesting and challenging work for team members which will make a significant contribution to overcoming the problems of talent attraction and retention that many firms not offering a diversified range of services are experiencing.

1. At the beginning – Systems commence with culture

Recruiting the right people who are keen to be a key contributor to a client’s success, onboarding of the selected person so that he/she immediately feels part of a winning team, training in the various Systems that will assist SMEs to achieve their business vision.

2. The Onboarding Process Starts with – Business Advisory Services Training

• Getting Organised – discussions on the differences between providing taxation services as compared to the broader requirements of offering Financial / Commercial / Management Accounting Services to SMEs.
• Offering Advisory Services – where do you start? The SME Needs Analysis is a great assistance to having worthwhile preliminary discussions with a client who may have always associated your firm with the provision of taxation services.
• Team training for the Delivery of Advisory Services – this involves role-play and subtle examples of your understanding of the wider commercial world in which your client operates – most SMEs will appreciate that you understand they need more advice than just taxation.
• Leadership training including the recognition of “Systems Champions”. Developing Systems Champions for the various Systems within ESS BIZTOOLS is a great way to encourage acceptance by your SME clients.
  
  You could appoint a number of Systems Champions:
  • Business Evaluation to understand the business on a “1 inch wide / 1 mile deep basis”
  • Business Planning
  • Predictive Accounting Reports – Budgets – Key Drivers – Cash Flow Forecast – Projected Balance Sheet
  • 52-Week Business Enhancement System
  • Weekly Profitability and Analysis Report
  • Fiscal Management
  • Starting a Business
  • Advising on fund raising capabilities available to SMEs 

3. An Early Task Is to Establish a – Rhythm of Meetings
   
   You can assist a client to establish a Rhythm of Meetings:
   Daily: Normally a short huddle to ascertain whether there were any unsolved problems from yesterday.
   Weekly: Review and analysis of the “Weekly Profitability and Analysis Reports”.
   Monthly: Key operational meeting to review the month’s performance

4. Businesses Need Firm Foundations to – Start a Business

• Characteristics of small business
• Legal structures
• Weaknesses of small business operators
• Disciplines required to succeed in small business
• Major reasons for failure in small business
• Successful business attitudes
• How to avoid the pitfalls
• What makes a business successful?

5. Communication is Helped by the – Business Plus Newsletter

• Professional Advisers need to establish their credibility as a Financial / Commercial / Management Accountant Advisory Service Provider to clients who might only associate their firm with taxation services.
• A regular monthly newsletter – which features a wide number of issues relating to small business is a valuable resource to start the dialogue with your clients that you can offer them a wider range of services in addition to taxation.
• ESS BIZTOOLS produces a monthly newsletter which our subscribers download and badge and email to clients. We recommend that you read the newsletter and identify clients who you think might be interested in various articles.  We suggest you contact selected clients about four days after you have forwarded the newsletter to them to enquire whether they had any questions or comments about the newsletter.
  
  In this way you establish some very important points with your client – you are interested in what is happening in their business – you are illustrating that you have the knowledge, skills and resources to assist them in Financial / Commercial / Management Accounting matters relating to their business.
  
  The contents of Business Plus January 2025 edition were:
  • Planning and preparation is important for a challenging year:
    • Credit Sales
    • Supplier Arrangements
    • Taxation Office Payments
    • Business Plan
    • Budgets
    • Cash Flow Forecast
    • Fiscal Management Knowledge
  • Business Review
  • Succession planning – have you thought about it?
  • Everyone has 1440 minutes a day
  
  At the conclusion at each segment of the newsletter we have inserted a “call to action”:
  
  “If you have uncertainty about “Fiscal Management Issues” affecting your business, please do not hesitate to contact the accountant in our organisation that you deal with”.

6. Using the Tools to Assist Clients to Trade Profitably – Tradies Charge Out Rate Calculator

There are thousands of trade businesses in Australia.  A common response that many Tradies offer when asked how do they set their charge out rates is to indicate they use the same rate as a competitor or they ask someone what they think the rate should be or they just guess the charge out rate.

The ESS BIZTOOLS Trades Charge Out Rate Calculator has been prepared to ensure that a businesslike approach is adopted for the calculation of charge out rates which will assist the Trades business to achieve their targeted profit.

Your firm could utilise the Trades Charge Out Rate Calculator (as many of our subscribers do) and then offer to prepare Monthly Financial Accounts with a comparison to the Budget  established within the Charge out Rate Calculator.  In this way actual productivity performance will be monitored throughout the year on a month by month basis so that if there are variances corrective action can be taken promptly rather than not being observed probably until the end of the financial year, when it is too late to rectify the variances.

7. “Systems Assist Success” Webinar Briefings

The opening webinar briefing of the Systems Assist Success Series is being presented on Thursday, 20 February 2025 at 10.00am AEST and will feature brief presentations on:

• Advisory services training
• Rhythm of meetings
• Starting a business
• Business Plus Newsletter
• Trades charge out rate calculator
• Together with a brief overview of the Advisory Intro Package developed by ESS BIZTOOLS to assist Accountants and Bookkeepers who are interested in establishing Advisory Services for their clients.

To attend this Complimentary Webinar please click here.

If you would like to find out more about ESS BIZTOOLS Financial / Commercial / Management Accounting Advisory Services please visit our website www.essbiztools.com.au where you could book a complimentary Zoom meeting at “Free Strategy and Demonstration Session”, or if you have any questions please send us an email or telephone (07) 4724 1118.

Thank you for reading our communication.