Growing Into the New Year

The new year brings new opportunities for your business to grow, and you’ve probably already started planning for the growth you want this coming year. But do you have the resources you need to manage that growth? If not, consider adding a comprehensive accounting team to your resource pool.

All businesses need three accounting resources on their team to generate their financial data:

• A bookkeeper
• An accountant
• A CFO

Your bookkeeper is someone onsite: he or she handles paper, opens the mail, cuts the checks and enters data. While bookkeepers generally do not have accounting degrees, they are extremely organized and feel very comfortable with numbers. They know their way around an accounting system and, for the first phase of your business, were just what you needed and what any CPA would recommend. In fact, I bet your office manager, receptionist, or administrative assistant currently does this work.

An accountant, however, has a different skillset, which most notably includes an accounting degree, and, if you’re lucky, a CPA. Like a bookkeeper, your accountant is organized and good with numbers. But you’ll find that an accountant adds value through more traditional accounting tasks like closing your books for the month, maintaining accrual basis financials, or building a cash flow forecast. An accountant adds a second set of eyes to whatever the bookkeeper handles, and provides a first-level review before anyone else sees your financials, fixing errors in classification of expense or period. Many of our clients look to an outsourced accountant to process payroll in order to keep it from the eyes of their staff.

Your CFO has a bigger-picture knowledge of your business. You work with him or her on building projections, considering new products, and tightening margins. Your CFO knows where your company will go next and leads the communication with your bank. Your CFO will accompany your financials with comparisons to budget and prior year, and use that data to reforecast your P&L and plan for the next six, 12 or 18 months.

As your business moves into the new year, think about your goals for growth and the skillsets required to accomplish them, and call on an accountant who can help you find the right resources, part- or full-time, and level of accounting expertise that’s right for you.