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Let us take you through five ways an experienced accountancy can help a small business, like yours, grow.
What role does your accountant play in your business’s growth?
At Blue Rocket Accounting, we’ve supported numerous businesses of all sizes in Dartford and the surrounding areas throughout London and Kent. This has allowed us to identify the five key ways with which we can help founders to achieve their goals.
When we work with a company, we want to see them rocket to success. We feel connected to our client’s success, especially so when we’ve worked with them since their early days. From celebrating their initial milestones, to helping with them to develop the next ones and then working towards those; it’s all very fulfilling for us. We help small business owners achieve compliance and can also be a mentor and adviser when they need us to be.
If your accountant has got the experience that you’ll need to draw on as you become more successful, they’ll have seen hundreds of companies go through what you are now. Use that knowledge to benefit your company.
If you ask lots of questions early on, and don’t feel they’re that motivated to get involved, it’s probably a good early indicator that they won’t be a good fit later on.
So, let’s dig into some of the ways in which we’ve helped companies like yours grow:
1. Guidance and advice
Set-up guidance and company formation:
- Critical decision making starts from the very beginning. For example, what legal entity should you form - sole trader, limited company, limited liability partnership? It’s hard to make these decisions in the early days of your business. But, of course, it’s not new to us, so you can ask us the questions and find out the pros and cons of each.
Speaking in plain English:
- Everyone’s job involves some jargon and shorthand. Some accountants can make it pretty hard to understand what they mean and why it’s important. It’s easy to get lost in amongst P11Ds, double entry systems and MTD* so, if it’s not something you’ve had to deal with before, make sure you’re working with someone who’s making sure you understand the terms, and in particular what the implications are for you and your business. There’s nothing worse than someone who uses their knowledge to keep people at arms’ length rather than bring them benefits.
Support helpline/accessibility:
- Included in your fees, (which you should expect to be clear with no hidden exclusions) should be a level of ongoing ad hoc and planned access to your accounting team. Whether it’s a quick call to check something, or a quarterly meeting to ensure you are on track, the right level of support should be available to you whenever you require it.
Benchmarking against competitors and sector:
- It's true, comparison is the thief of joy. But that often doesn’t stop any of us from wondering how we’re doing against our competition. We have access to data across all sectors so we can see if you are over, or under-performing, and offer some advice on what to do next. Knowing that everyone is experiencing a similar rate of growth, particularly if it’s more depressed than previously, can be very comforting. Better still to outperform a market!
Give you confidence
- Like we said earlier, we want to see you do well. We like to work with successful companies, however you define your success. The numbers speak for themselves, and we can help you to see what has been achieved and what you can learn from that. Having confidence in your accountancy information should make business planning easier and reduces risk in decision-making.
2. Access to funds
Making introductions:
- Our clients like the fact that we’re well connected. It helps us to find opportunities for them, whether that’s for future partnerships, buy-outs or service extensions.
Preparing projections and financial info they need:
- I’m sure we all remember the Dragon’s Den people who didn’t know their turnover ……? Whether it’s a loan, a retirement plan or an investment opportunity, having the expected information accurately prepared can make a big difference in making the right impression. Not only can we help prepare the information, but we can also help to prep you, so you are confident during the questioning.
Help you access external finance:
- Gaining access to research and development grants can make a big difference when you are looking to move into new areas of business in science and technology. Our clients get direction in how to apply for R&D and innovation projects in the most effective way.
Better use of internal resources:
- Rather than taking up lots of your time and energy wading through paperwork and learning new skills, why not use those resources more effectively by outsourcing what you don’t do, to focus time on doing what you do well.
3. Preventing/ flagging up issues
Protecting you from costly investigations:
- HMRC targets everyone, no matter how large or small a company. Tax investigations can often become a drawn-out process and the accounting fees involved in a routine investigation could amount to £10,000, even if you can provide evidence of compliance. Check whether your accountant offers fee protection, and if they don’t, we’d recommend finding one that does to ensure you are covered in the event of an investigation.
Resolving shareholder disputes:
- Shareholder disputes can cause significant disruption to a company and are more common than you’d think. It is in the interest of all concerned to have them resolved as quickly and efficiently as possible. Keeping detailed, extensive accounts can help to prevent a financial dispute in the first place, but if there are questions around the numbers or accounting practices, accountants can help to bring a swift resolution. Anything beyond this, it’s best to revert to a legal advisor.
Providing employee advice:
- Deciding when the right time is to take on a new employee can be difficult, and there are many considerations. Accountants shouldn’t provide HR advice, but we can help you to scope out the long-term impact hiring employees will have on your business. For most companies, a new employee becomes a financial burden when they are first hired. It takes time for a new employee to familiarise themselves with their role. In fact, depending on previous experience, it could take anything from six months to over a year for an employee to break even with their salary and become truly profitable.
- Additionally, it’s important to know when it is appropriate to let people go. An accountant can help you spot if an employee is costing you more than they are bringing in, or if the company cannot financially sustain the current level of employees.
Applying knowledge to your business:
- No one should know more about your business than you but, a good accountant can offer you additional insight into your business performance and the market you operate in which you might not otherwise have access to. They can benchmark your business against direct competitors and other similar businesses within your industry, which can help you gauge how well you are performing, but also how well you could be doing.
4. Helping you to achieve your business goals
Setting financial goals:
- Setting financial goals is a good way to measure your overall business success. They are quantifiable and provide you with key milestones to track your progress over time. But where do you start? An accountant can help you determine realistic targets.
Introduce you to new contacts:
- Accountants often work with a wide variety of businesses and can facilitate introductions if appropriate. This is something our clients certainly appreciate. We have contacts working in HR, law, business growth, R&D, training, commercial property, recruitment, marketing and more.
Help you plan for future:
- From identifying a trend in your industry and advising you on investment opportunities, to alerting you to a change in legislation such as Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, accountants can make sure you are prepared for changes which could affect your business.
- We can also advise on exit strategies or investments in commercial property, for example, and help you to plan for you and your business longer term.
5. Maximising your profitability
Minimising your tax bill:
- The amount of tax you pay is dependent on an ever-changing set of variables. Keeping track of them can be time consuming and challenging, which is why you should have an accountant take care of it for you. Accountants will make sure you are set up appropriately and remain as tax efficient as possible throughout the entirety of the year, whilst also ensuring compliance.
Free up your time:
- Understandably, numbers aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Even if you are a numbers person, managing your books and submitting your accounts can take up a lot of time. Having an accountant you trust to take care of this for you will help free you up so that you can devote more of your valuable time to other business critical activities, such as finding and winning new business.
By now we hope we’ve demonstrated that an accountant can offer you a lot more than just submitting your tax and vat returns. The more you involve your accountant in your business, the more they can help it to grow. So, get in touch and let us join your business journey, because our mission is your success.
Want to find out more about our services? Request a quote today by calling 01322 555442 or email happytohelp@bluerocketaccounting.com.
* Since we aren’t the type to try to confuse, P11D is the form used to report expenses and benefits paid to directors and employees which have not been subject to PAYE tax, double entry bookkeeping systems are when you enter all transactions twice to track acquisition and spend, MTD is ‘Making Tax Digital’, the initiative to move companies towards making digital tax submissions online and R&D is ‘Research and Development’ reliefs which support companies that work on innovative projects in science and technology.
