Is Your Accounting Staff Able to Take You to the Next Level?
When your company is just beginning, you’re not necessarily thinking about the talents and skills your employees are going to need in the years to come. At first, you just focus on surviving, and that sometimes means that you’re willing to hire just about anyone who will work at the pay level you can afford.
As oftentimes happens, a business owner hires someone they already know and trust, such as a neighbor or sister, to do the bookkeeping for them. Now, it’s true that this person might not even have experience in bookkeeping, but they just are more skilled at it than the owner.
Do You Need More Skilled Accounting Staff?
As the business grows, the needs and requirements of the business exceed the expertise of the original bookkeeper. As transactions get more complex, the books can get messy. And while the bookkeeper focuses on keeping up with the basic tasks, the big picture details go unattended.
No one is managing cash, monitoring profitability, or building relationships with lenders-no one is paving the way for growth. Even if the owner knew how to present the business to a bank or investor, the numbers might not be reliable. It can end up literally handicapping the entire organization.
Help for the Business Owner
In fact, many owners don’t consider themselves knowledgeable in finance or accounting, and don’t have a formal background in it. This can leave them poorly equipped to properly supervise a bookkeeper, much less train them. In addition, they may not be able to handle issues like forecasting, controlling costs, and analyzing profitability.
A Qualified CFO or controller can help in two important ways:
* The CFO or controller can support and train your existing accounting staff, so that they can operate at optimal levels. This might include putting together procedural manuals, automating some processes, and reorganizing disorganized books, so that the bookkeeper can have a fresh start.
* The CFO can perform duties outside of the bookkeeper’s or owner’s expertise, such as analyzing and preparing financial statements, putting together business plans, determining budgets and making cash flow analyses.
This can take pressure off of the business owner, who is then able to have the time and energy to focus on running the business. The bookkeeper in turn tends to do much better once trained properly and with clear expectations to follow.
Efficient Processing Adds to Your Bottom Line
How your accounting operations are run makes a direct impact on how profitable and able to grow your company is. As an example, when you process accounts receivable efficiently, you collect payments more promptly, cash flow comes in more evenly, and banks can see your business has more credible.
If you don’t feel confident that your accounting staff is poised to take your company to the next level, it’s time to call in a professional accounting service.
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