Why it's time to talk to your accountant
As a business owner, you should be getting much more from your accountant than a set of accounts sent over via email once or twice a year. If you’re not receiving regular advice, insight, business consultancy or even just having an occasional check-in chat, perhaps it’s time you reconsidered your relationship?
Business Control’s Richard Starkey explains why your accountant is probably your most underused resource – but one of your most valuable.
Something very much within a business owner’s control is ensuring they’re getting the most out of their accountant. When was the last time you spoke to yours (and I don’t mean a payroll query via email)? And how many times over the last year have you actually seen your accountant?
It’s time to switch things up.
An in-person visit can make all the difference to your business. It’ll enable your accountant to really get under the hood of your business; to see how it's working, get a sense of the dynamics and find potential areas that could stand to improve. From where I’m sitting, it’s a non-negotiable part of the business relationship.
I know that, when visiting clients, I can discover elements that may lead to cost saving and improved business efficiency. For example, are they using their office space to its fullest? Are they claiming enough for their operating expenses? Are they getting the pricing right? Is there anything I can do to share some tips or insight?
And of course, can we have a quick run through the figures? Cashflow. Sales pipeline. Forecasts.
Our approach
At Business Control, we pride ourselves on our management advice, in addition to accountancy services. Accountants should be proactive, they should come to the client to pose new ideas and avenues to improve – and in order to achieve this, you need to know the business well. This is what we do.
One of the biggest questions I tend to ask is ‘do you know how much money you make per customer’? It’s easy for business owners to take on work for an agreed price and then time passes and situations change. Costs rise, for example, and it may be that your hard-won deal becomes no longer profitable.
Not financially minded?
By the way, if all this talk of looking at profits, forecasts and cashflow is bringing you out in a cold sweat… then you’ve almost definitely got the wrong accountant. If your skills lie beyond the balance sheet, it’s our job to talk you through the figures and to do the ‘heavy financial lifting’ for you.
What we’ve learned
At Business Control, we tend to go out and see clients generally once a quarter, but quite often we have weekly meetings. For a business owner who gets trapped in the everyday busy work, it’s important that your accountant is pushing a more strategic view, especially when it comes to the actual numbers and looking at the forecast.
This involves both a forward-looking and a hindsight-based approach. Scrutinise what has happened in the past quarter, learn lessons from it and look for any patterns; and then apply those lessons to what’s coming down the line.
Reflections
All in all, a little bit of reflection often leads to good things and with the wider market looking a little uncertain for the time being, now’s a good time to take a step back and consider whether you’re getting the most out of your consultants.
Of course, navigating cost increases and the difficulty of recruiting quality staff continues to be a balancing act, but things could start picking up in the wider market. And of course, it’s always easy to spot the downsides in any business. My take? Look past them, and plan around them (where appropriate).
Don’t forget to keep talking, keep an eye on the cashflow and keep your accountant doing their best for your business.
If you're interested in finding out more about changing accountants, have a look at our smart guide which is all about busting myths where switching things up is concerned. It’s a lot easier than you might think.
Check out the rest of our blogs periodically to get the very latest insight and information from the Business Control team.
