Well, right now there is an emerging change in the business world which could see traditional accountants become an endangered species.
Talk to any business owner about the service they receive from their accountant and the common answer is taking care of compliance and lodgments relating to the expectations of the ATO - such as quarterly BAS and end-of-year financial reports. This "species" is on the way out.
Today, astute business owners want regular (weekly, fortnightly) input from their accountant and not just profit and loss.
They want reporting as well as advice on how to grow their enterprise. How to increase sales, speed up internal processes, reduce overheads, expand into new markets.
They want to be able to make quick decisions such as ordering another shipment of stock, hiring more employees, investing in a new product, CAPEX spending, expanding their premises and so on.
The age of Accounting 2.0 is upon us and it will be a case of survival of the fittest. Those accountants who expand their range of services and increase client liaison to a weekly or fortnightly frequency will survive this change.
I will give you an example. Prime Focus Growth provides 11 fixed-price services which can be individually selected or packaged.
These include business growth advice, weekly or fortnightly on-site management reporting at the client's place of work, assistance with employee time sheets, payroll, bookkeeping, general accounting, compliance, advice on self managed superannuation funds-capital gains tax-fringe benefits tax-GST, automated and cloud-based point of sale systems, automated business systems, OHS/WHS, and cloud-based accounting. The New Age accountant is a single source business growth advisor.
One of the core foundation stones in Accounting 2.0 which enables these automated processes and up-to-the-minute financial reporting is cloud-based accounting. It empowers the business owner.
You can request customised reports and updates straight to your tablet or Smartphone wherever you are; daily if necessary. There's no waiting for the accountant's quarterly or end-of-month review or having to go to their office.
Software like Xero sets up repeat activities such as issuing of invoices and statements and payment of salaries in its calendar and it is all done for you. This is where you win back valuable time to invest in other aspects of your business such as winning new customers.
Accounting 2.0 is about flexibility. You are in control. You decide what information you need and when. You could be sitting in your car in a car park somewhere and by accessing the Xero Touch app' you can confirm invoices, check debtor exposure, assess the latest sales figures and know your cash flow status in a matter of minutes.
You choose which services are of benefit to you and, should circumstances change, you are able to add new ones.
Xero is growing a "family" of alliance partners and by the end of this year will have more than 200 app's designed to streamline business operations.
A few examples include Vend for point of sale, Unleashed for inventory, the Capsule CRM tool and ZenCash which follows up non-paying customers. Some are focused on specific types of businesses such as dental and franchises.
The software also has free upgrades throughout the year so the whole experience is not dissimilar to owning an Apple iPhone.
There is another very good reason for running your business from "the cloud": data back-up and recovery.
I heard of accountants whose offices were destroyed in the Christchurch earthquakes. They simply bought new laptops, set up wi-fi and were back in business within days. They didn't lose any of their clients' records because they were all "in the cloud".
Justin Moore, the CEO of Axcient, says: “I believe that backup, as we know it, is dead. We live in an always-on world where there’s an expectation that businesses of all sizes, run without interruption. Businesses need a new paradigm of protection – one that enables them to not only protect and access their data, but also their applications and systems at all times."
Joan Wrabetz from Eversync agrees: “Cloud computing is having a major impact on the direction for data protection, especially in the mid-market, where nearly 80% of companies expect to deploy cloud storage for backup, disaster recovery and archiving within the next three years.”
Challenge your accountant to move with the times and to increase the amount of advice and input they provide to you, on a more regular basis.
By doing this they won't become a thing of the past; like the dinosaurs. However, if they are not willing to embrace Accounting 2.0 and give you remote access on-demand to your most-needed information; customised to the unique needs of your business; automated business processes; reduced manual data entry with less chance of human error; back-up data where it can't be compromised or lost and more of your time freed up then maybe it’s time to reconsider your options.
Bill Tyrrell is a SME business growth and cloud based accounting advisor. Contact him at bill@primefocusgrowth.com.au.
