Tag: accounting practice growth

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“Business as Usual” Isn’t Cutting It

“Business as Usual” Isn’t Cutting It

For a lot of businesses today, “business as usual” just isn’t cutting it.  Competition is getting more aggressive, and clients are demanding more while margins are shrinking and the cost of operating the business just seems to go up.  Business owners and their CFOs must recognize that it’s time to change the way they operate.  By leveraging innovative technologies and cloud solutions, it is possible to transform the way critical business decisions are made and to radically improve how the business serves their customers, empowers their sales force, and keeps mobile workers working.

Business intelligence comes from all aspects of the business, not just accounting and finance.  Particularly in volatile economy, where uncertainty weighs heavily on each and every business owner, it is essential that the business make the best possible use of its information assets to eek out every bit of insight it can in order to not simply survive, but to find a way to identify and capture opportunities which will propel the business forward.

Data is just data, but information is power.  It takes skill and experience to turn raw data into instant insight, and this is where accounting and finance professionals should be placing their focus.  With a wise and intelligent approach to “enabling” businesses with tools to help streamline and improve process effectiveness, and structuring systems to capture and integrate data throughout the operation, CFOs and accounting professionals can assist their business clients in turning operational and financial data into actionable information supporting better decision-making.

Make Sense?

J

Read more… What will my business be worth when I need it to be worth a lot?  Your Exit Strategy

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Managing The Purchasing Process: More than just expenses

Managing The Purchasing Process: More than just expenses

When a business owner hears the term “expense management”, they immediately get a vision of traveling employees with piles of receipts and vouchers to be organized, accounted, and possibly reimbursed for.  The image is fleeting, gone out of mind with no lingering thought, because this business owner does not have personnel who travel frequently, and does not have to deal with volumes of expense reports from employees.  Expense management solutions aren’t anything this business owner is looking for.

Yet, what does happen every day is that equipment, materials, supplies, and services must be purchased to keep the business operation going.  Calls are made to vendors, price quotes are developed, and purchase requests are typed up in Excel spreadsheets and piled on the owner’s desk for approval.  The business owner rifles through the various requests, and brings in the bookkeeper to help work through the decision of which items to authorize based on current cash availability.  Because the availability of working capital changes frequently with billings being sent out and receipts being deposited daily, the owner and the bookkeeper spend much of their time together figuring out which purchases to make and when.  It is a continual and ongoing process, taking a lot of time and attention away from other important business matters.

Too often, thoughts of managing these efforts with more structure places the problem “in a box” and addresses only half of the issue – the purchase.  While managing materials requirements and predicting when parts or supplies will be needed is one side of the problem, factoring those purchasing plans in to the cash requirements of the business, and having a meaningful and effective way to monitor current cash, expected receipts and purchase requirements together is essential.  This ability requires that the payments management solution also address receivables in order to have the cash flow and availability information necessary.

Expense and purchase management processes generally involve three main steps: planning, tracking, and reporting.  As the process involves planning, it suggests a proactive rather than a reactive approach to cash management and purchasing activities.  By bringing together all of the critical data which describes “inflows and outflows”, the business owner has the information necessary to not only forecast (plan) cash requirements but to also understand the availability of working capital.  Knowing ahead of time that traditionally slow paying contracts aren’t factored into immediately available cash is important, and being able to make adjustments to purchase schedules based on availability of funds is essential.

Expense reporting may not be a big part of the business, but managing cash flow and purchasing goods and services is, even in the smallest of enterprises.  Make sure the business has the tools in place to help bring an additional level of intelligence to purchasing activities, and that those tools deliver the benefits of a structured (but not time-consuming) purchasing approvals and proactive cash flow management process.

For accounting and finance professionals, this is a highly valuable area of service you could be providing to your clients – helping to implement the tools and solutions which not only allow you to work in more depth with client businesses, but which deliver immediate visible and actionable benefit to the client.  This is just one of the ways accounting professionals can work closer with their clients, and the benefit is delivered each and every day (not just at tax time).

Make Sense?

J

  • Is your purchasing and expense approvals process holding up your business? Read more…
  • Read more about using the cloud to extend “connectedness” beyond traditional boundaries 
  • Read more about how there’s no fear and loathing in accounting
  • Read more about the pressure on accountants to deliver more value and intelligence to their clients
  • Read more about Data Warriors: accounting in the cloud
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Knowing More: CFO and Accountant Value in Understanding Business Operations

Knowing More: CFO and Accountant Value in Understanding Business Operations

Accounting professionals are being pressured to deliver more value and intelligence to their business clients every day.  The pressure comes from a variety of areas, not the least of which is the fact that a lot of do-it-yourself tools are now available which lead business owners and managers to believe that they know what’s going on in the business.  Lots of charts, graphs, and dashboard presentations make the numbers more readable, but they don’t say whether or not the numbers are even right.  Even more important, they don’t deliver insight based on experience and understanding.  This is where the accounting professional’s value really comes from – providing insight based on good data and quality data analysis backed by experience and understanding of the business.

You can’t be a good CFO or a strategic business partner to your CEO until you thoroughly understand operations and how they drive performance,
CFO.com (http://s.tt/1rtoZ)

Knowing what makes a business valuable is important, but what many business owners don’t fully understand is how to best increase that value.  Generalized reports which summarize financial information, distilling it into a standard set of metrics, often don’t tell the business owner what they really need to know – how to go about increasing the overall value of their business, whether it is through improved profitability or through growth.

The business owner understands the operations, but not necessarily how operational activities actually impact value and profitability.  Helping owners know more about their enterprises requires that the accounting professional also know more, where gaining a deep understanding of operations and learning what business functions are addressed and how becomes the key to bridging the gap between operational knowledge and business valuation. This is where the accounting professional or CFO can really make a difference, and can help to apply their knowledge in building business value directly towards those areas which fundamentally impact it.

Make Sense?

J

  • Read more about how accountants need business intelligence, too
  • Read more about how there’s no fear and loathing in accounting
  • Read more about Data Warriors: accounting in the cloud
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QuickBooks Hosting Services and Accounting Professionals

The value of applying an application hosting model for your clients

The concept of application hosting is not at all new.  In fact, there are literally millions of business users accessing hosted applications and similar services every day, and adoption didn’t reach those numbers overnight.  For several years now, Intuit (the makers of QuickBooks financial software, among other things) has even had an “Authorized Commercial Host for QuickBooks” program.  If Intuit recognizes the value of a hosted application service model, then there must be something to it, because Intuit rarely does anything unless it’s big.

The value of application hosting services, such as QuickBooks hosting, may differ from business to business, but the underlying benefits are there for all to achieve.  For some, the main value is in being able to access business information and data while traveling.  Using mobile devices, business users are able to get information on customers, orders, payments, and other valuable data – from anywhere they choose to work.  Being able to keep tabs on the business even when they aren’t there is very important to some business owners.

For others, the value of application hosting services is the collaboration that it enables.  With public accounting in particular, the client business and the accounting professional do not work at the same place at the same time.  Being able to work on the same software and data, and doing that work at the same or different times (it doesn’t matter when or where they work) allows business owners and their accounting and bookkeeping professionals to work seamlessly together in support of the business.  This online model allows the business owner to benefit from better financial data in real-time, rather than waiting for the work to be done after the fact, at the end of the month or year.

The underlying benefit that all parties get from a hosted application and online working model is better information technology management and greater predictability in IT service costs and capabilities.  Businesses need to be able to focus on their business and not on the IT which supports it, and outsource professionals such as accountants and bookkeepers need to be able to work with clients efficiently without having to invest in expensive tools and services to make it happen.  A hosted application approach, when applied to the client business, delivers many benefits to the business owners while at the same time providing tangible benefits in efficiency through more effective time management and improved access to information for the professionals who support those businesses.

When developing a working model for outsourced bookkeeping, accounting, or virtual CFO services, it is essential to recognize that businesses need technology to support their operations, and there may be “line of business” solutions in use as well as accounting or financial software.  Too often, outsource bookkeeping and accounting professionals focus only on the accounting or financial systems, and fail to consider the critical aspects of the operational level applications which support the various functions of the business.   With a hosted application approach, the business solutions in use can be “enabled” – from operational solutions to accounting and finance supporting applications – so that accounting professionals may gain access to the complete realm of business data, putting them in a far better position to ensure that the information resulting in the accounting system is of high quality and may be trusted.

Make sense?

J

Read more about Accountants and Bookkeepers Working With QuickBooks Clients: App Hosting Approaches That Work

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Accountants and Bookkeepers Working With QuickBooks Clients: App Hosting Approaches That Work

Accountants and Bookkeepers Working With QuickBooks Clients: App Hosting Approaches That Work

Ever since the first application service providers began offering hosting services for Intuit QuickBooks desktop products, the idea of running desktop editions of QuickBooks in the cloud has created both intrigue and confusion among accounting professionals and their clients alike.  Part of the problem is the term “cloud”, which seems to equate the hosted QuickBooks desktop editions with the true cloud app QuickBooks Online Edition.  But hosted QuickBooks isn’t QBOE, it’s a service model developed around the actual desktop versions of QuickBooks: Pro, Premier and Enterprise.

While it is true that both solutions – hosted QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online Edition – offer centrally managed and accessible online accounting functionality, the underlying services are very different and operate under completely different “rules”.  One of the rules, or conditions, which differs between the two solutions is that with hosted QuickBooks service, you may also be able to run other business applications and manage other business data, not just QB apps and data.  This is an essential capability when you consider that QuickBooks desktop software integrates with and takes advantage of functionality found in other popular business solutions, such as Microsoft Office.

In many QuickBooks hosting services, the inclusion of Office app hosting is typical due to the reliance upon functionality in those solutions (Excel reporting, Word letter-writing, and Outlook emailing).  When it comes to other tools or application integrations, however, customized hosting service becomes necessary.   When the need for additional applications or integrations arises, consideration should be given to the best way to orient and implement those add-ons.

For example, if a client business has a heavy reliance upon a solution which integrates with QuickBooks, and uses the solution to handle daily tasks in the business, then it makes a lot of sense to create a hosting environment specifically for that client.  The client would be able to access their unique set of solutions, and the accounting/bookkeeping professionals can be invited to participate in that system.  This keeps the data in one place, managed and controlled, yet allows all parties who need access to get access.

In other situations, there may be a tool or utility necessary to help get data from one place to another, and this tool or utility is not something the client uses in their daily work.  In this type of scenario, it may make sense for the accountant/bookkeeper to have a customized environment which allows them to use the tools and solutions which assist in data integration, organization, validation or review.  In many cases, the accountant or bookkeeper may perform these data integrations or sync operations directly in the client data file, so that the client (using “generic” service with just QuickBooks hosted) is able to then access and view the integrated data.  In this scenario, only the accounting professional has the additional tools necessary, allowing the cost of hosting for the client to remain lower.  Approaching a hosting environment in this manner might allow the accounting professional to develop a niche or customized approach to serving a specific type of client, incorporating behind-the-scenes data aggregation or integration and other types of process support as part of the overall service delivered.

The key to developing the right application hosting and outsourced accounting service model is to focus on how the practice will use the hosting solutions to improve service and process efficiency, serve client needs better and more fully, and differentiate themselves from their competitors in the market.  By applying the hosting service and online solution properly, business clients and the accounting professionals who support them will both benefit by getting the information and the application functionality they need, when they need it.

Make sense?

J

read more about the confusion over hosted licensing on The Progressive Accountant http://www.theprogressiveaccountant.com/tech-tips/confusion-over-hosted-licensing.html