Why accounting packages are good for sole traders & start-ups

Recently, I seem to be advising sole traders and owner-managed small limited companies about accounts packages.

Whilst buying an accounts package when your business is small or starting off seems like a major expense, the benefits that it can bring to your business is normally worth the expense.

Here are 5 reasons why accounts packages are worth investing in:

1. Accounting packages  provide discipline in record-keeping – ensuring that all cash (incoming and outgoing), revenue and expenses are properly captured.  Important if you want good information about your profitability before your accountant produces your tax return or statutory accounts.
2.Acounting packages provide debtor and creditor information – not only what is outstanding or owed – but very often in the case of debtors, how much one client spends with you.
3. The time producing sales invoices, especially for those with a high volume of debtors, decreases if the accounts package has the facility  to produce pdf versions which can be emailed.
4. An accounts package can easily produce monthly management accounts. This  information is a powerful tool for driving your business forward.
5. The management accounts, with a bit of tweaking, can act as a ready reckoner of your expected tax bill as you move throughout your financial  year.

As a final thought consider the fact that  if a PC -based package is bought,  it’s a one-off cost (and tax deductible) for a bit of software that you’ll be using for the next 3-4 years which gives you valuable information about your business.

Why Small Business Owners should care about their balance sheet….

Small business owners tend to view their balance sheet as something that belongs in the final accounts, and that their accountant deals with.

Knowing your balance sheet as a small business owner is important for a few reasons, but the main and traditional reason is that it is a financial snapshot of your business’ health. It answers the basic question: Do you have enough assets (what you own) to cover your liabilities (what you owe)? – often on one page.

Asset are more than just the physical bits of computer kit and furniture that you own, trade debtors or cash in the bank.

If you have deposits, prepayments or simple bonds – you need to keep a track of  these. The balance sheet does this for you.

Similarly, liabilities are more than just trade creditors.  Creditors only tracked and recorded on the balance sheet include PAYE & NI Contributions, Corporation Tax,  loans and finance leases.

Asking questions about balances held in the balance sheet also provides understanding and clarity about underlying issues within a business that may need corrective action. For example:  Assets that are no longer held may need to be written off, but the real issue uncovered is the failure of the current process within the company to relay that information to the finance function for appropriate action within the accounts.

Finally, whatever your planned exit strategy, from a finance perspective,  your balance sheet, as well as profits and turnover, will have an effect on the attractiveness of your business to a potential buyer. Questions will be asked about all these areas, but “how clean is your balance sheet?” is a fairly common one. Simply put – this question is asking is whether  your balance sheet is correct, and whether it has  anything in it that doesn’t warrant being there e.g. debtors who have turned bad and will never pay, physical assets that have long been scrapped.

Even as a small business, the practice of reviewing and understanding your balance sheet is a good habit to acquire. Large and global companies always review their balance sheets, and with just cause, it gives them some important financial information about the health of their business.

Easy ways for SME’s to help return to work mums

Your employee is on maternity leave, and the time to come back to work is approaching. Assuming she is coming back full-time, below are some simple ideas to help with this transition, and why this benefits both the employee and the company…

1. Have a keep-in-touch (kit) days during maternity leave.

Invite your employee to come into work for a cup of coffee and a chat. Make it your responsibility to update your employee,  not the other way round.

Having kit days means your employee is aware of any new initiatives, major changes and can meet any new team members.

From her point of view – this means she isn’t shell-shocked by what feels like either like lots of changes (which she has to process and adjust to) or what feels like a new company.

From the company’s point of view – the company will benefit as the re-learning curve will be reduced significantly.

2. Consider flexible starts and finishes in the first few weeks of return to work…

It takes time for a family to adjust to a new routine, and whilst childcare arrangements will be in place, often it is the morning routine to get everyone out the door that needs to be finely honed.

For her: Offering flexible starts and finishes in the first few weeks provides the opportunity to get the routine running like clockwork without the pressure to be at the office at a certain time.

For the company: Agreeing this in advance means that you’ve preset your own expectations, and can focus on re-settling your employee into work.

3. Remote working. Would it be possible for the employee to work from home one or two days a week?

The benefits for her are less travelling time, which in itself can reduce stress and tiredness, which means increased productivity for the company.

4. Confidence boosters. Think of ways to boost your employees confidence at work.

One of the most common issues for returning to work mums is a dip in confidence at work. The skills set haven’t disappeared, but somehow they get forgotten of their existence. Boosting confidence will help your employee realise that her skills remain intact, and quite possibly, she’s picked a few new ones along the way that can tranfer to the workplace.

The above ideas are a result of having been through the return to work process twice, and what I found, or would have found, helpful both times.

Ideas On Managing People

Yesterday  I tweeted that managing staff was all about building relationships, uncovering true potential and then coaching and mentoring that potential.

Why is a management accountant talking about managing people?  Management Accountancy looks at businesses and how they perform. People are the key to making any business succeed.  So, it’s only natural, well to me at any rate, that I should be interested in the whole idea of getting people to realise their full potential in a work enviroment:

So, back to my original tweet: Here are some thoughts and ideas that might just help you uncover and help people realise their potential:

1.Talk to your staff – Performance appraisals, even for small businesses, are a useful way of  getting the conversation going about how well someone is doing in their job. Don’t make it onerous, use it as an opportunity to  really get to know the people you’ve employed .

In a small business it should be a two-way discussion about skills gaps and issues within their  day-to-day working life that may be preventing them from performing their job well. It should also be about their aspirations and hopes for themselves. Explore the possibility that helping them to realise their dreams might just dovetail  with achieving yours.

2. Share your strategy and goals with your team. If they don’t know what the goals and objectives are for the coming year -  how will you uncover whether someone would like to learn a new skill that could just help you achieve a specific goal.

3. Say thank you and notice their efforts and successes on a day-t0-day basis. It’s simple and very effective. The hardest parts are teaching yourself to notice the efforts and successes in the hurly burly of running a small business,  as well as  liberally offering specific praise. But once you get the hang of it, it becomes second nature.

4. Share and pass on skills and knowledge. Take the time to share your knowledge and experience with your team. This is the easiest and simplest way to start the coaching and mentoring process to fully develop an individual’s potential.

Finally, I went to a Business Link event where I heard Josephine Fairley of Green & Black’s speak;   paraphrasing her, she  said that if you insist on people coming in at 9 and leaving at 5, then all you will get is the 9 to 5 mentality. If you treat people with respect and understanding, then you will get so much more.