Why you need to make sure they do!
What type of business owner are you? Proactive and opportunity-seeking, or reactive and blinkered? And what about your accountant? The category you’re in could well mean the difference between business growth and success, your income plateauing, or even failing altogether.
Having a forward-thinking accountant with a head for tax efficiency and an eye for the broader picture allows you to spot opportunities, plan for the future and recognise challenges before they arrive. And, when done correctly, will give you a competitive advantage over other businesses.
The changing face of accounting.
Accounting has undergone significant changes over the preceding few decades. No longer is it a staid, dusty profession working with months-old numbers, but one that allows real-time understanding and analysis of financial data and deliberate thought to the future.
Besides the obvious keeping pace with changes in legislation, accounting has evolved alongside computing. Thanks to free and subscription-based software like QuickFile and Xero, the manual tracking of expenditure and income, double- and triple-checking figures, and analysing an entire 12 months of trading at the end of the tax year are (almost) history. Accountants (and business owners) can now leave the heavy-lifting of account management to technology and instead focus on understanding the meaning behind the numbers and maximising a business’s efficiency.
Are you tax-efficient?
With much of the hard work taken care of, you can get with the day job. But what more can you do to improve your business? You can ensure that it’s tax efficient.
Being tax-efficient means far more than keeping on top of your books and leaving the rest to your accountant at year-end. By that time, opportunities have been lost. Instead, you need a proactive approach, for instance, looking out for government-backed tax reduction schemes or planning the timing of your investments carefully. This way, you can simultaneously invest in and support your business.
Financial accounting versus management accounting.
If your accountant has industry experience — outside accounting, that is — so much the better. A thorough understanding of business management combined with accountancy gives you a stronger position from which to make strategic decisions. You can monitor spending or invoicing trends, understand how expenditure on materials is distributed throughout the business, or plan your immediate future based on facts rather than surmise, or worse, based on nothing at all.
With the right knowledge and ready access to financial resources, a business can be agile and can react to change quickly.
A trusted advisor or financial administrator?
No longer is an accountant someone you leave a bag of receipts with at the end of a financial year. They are a trusted advisor, someone who has a sufficient understanding of your sector and business to advise appropriately on decisions such as when to purchase new machinery or hardware, how to allocate your financial resources, or perhaps even how to position your brand.
If we had a choice, we know which we’d rather choose!
The bottom line.
Of course, having a financially healthy business is essential for its survival, but thinking strategically based on past and current outcomes gives you a significant advantage in the marketplace. So, ask yourself, is your business as tax efficient as it could be? Is your accountant changing with the times and able to advise on your important decisions, or are they stuck in the mud, unable to support you?
If you’d like an accountant that can act as a trusted advisor then you need to think about switching accountants so get in touch! We’ll help you crunch your numbers and support you in your long-term planning. Want to know more? Call us on 01482 408585, send us an email, or book an appointment to visit us at 277 Anlaby Rd, Hull, HU3 2SE.