Due to old stereotypes, there are a lot of misconceptions about the purpose of an Accountant, and how much support we can give you. Do any of these sound familiar?
- An Accountant is just the person you see once a year who helps you get things straight with HMRC.
- When you grow as a business you should get your own in-house bookkeeper or finance team
- Only big companies need (and can afford) accountants
- It’s all or nothing with an accountant. You either get a cheap accountant for a tax return or an expensive accountant who manages all your financial stuff.
We’re here to do some myth-busting. Although we’ll always make sure all is good with the financial powers-that-be, we’re able to do a lot more to help you run your business. We support solo business owners and big companies from a simple check and tidy of accounts all the way through to full financial support.
If we do one thing it’s help you get your weekends back, taking on as little or as much as you need to make it happen.
As much as you need, no more, no less
For many of our clients, we’re doing everything - from fully managing the bookkeeping and providing the financial reports they need to make decisions, down to managing expenses and invoices. We suggest who they pay, set up the payments for them and run payroll. Sometimes we even order their supplies!
- Not every client needs full support in all areas.
- You might be fairly content doing the bookkeeping yourself for now, and just need a monthly check of the numbers to reassure you you’re doing things right.
- You might just want some support to make your systems more efficient. We’ve helped many clients get set up on Xero so they can stop doing all the manual time-sucking tasks.
The point is, you’re busy - non stop. You’re bombarded left right and centre by calls from suppliers and emails from clients. You have people to pay, processes to build, bills to cover. It’s hard to keep track of it all. And it doesn’t have to be that way.
There’s no point in breaking your back doing tasks you don’t like
If you’re not an IT expert, you’re not likely to be the one swooping in to fix the computer when it goes funny. Now replace ‘fixing computers’ with any task you’re not fond of, not great at, or would rather throw to an expert to deal with. Is bookkeeping one of those tasks? Paying staff? Chasing late suppliers for overdue payments?
We’ve found lockdown this year has forced people to make these kinds of decisions (and fast).
- What is my time best spent on?
- What do I enjoy doing? What don’t I enjoy?
- What does the team enjoy?
- What should we keep in-house?
- What can we outsource?
Recently, we outsourced our marketing to an agency who work specifically with Accountants. We’ve hired marketing assistants in the past, and the team have taken on some marketing tasks alongside their work. Feeling like it was too much to keep up with, we originally thought hiring in-house would be best. But we’ve found it can be hard to find one person to cover all bases. When you’re hiring in-house, you may find you actually need several roles covered. You’ll also need to think about training them, managing them, overseeing their work and progress.
When it comes to cost and expertise, outsourcing tasks (or your whole finance function) may be a more economical choice than hiring in-house.
Outsourcing might be a better value option than hiring an employee
When you outsource your accounting, you’re outsourcing to an experienced organisation. Often the monthly cost to an Accounting firm is less than you’d be paying to hire an expert in house, not to mention the monthly support will cover more than one role. Going back to our marketing example, hiring an agency means paying one cost for a designer, content writer, website specialist, strategist, client manager.
We spoke to a client who was initially looking to replace two roles: Accounts payable and Credit Control. The employees he had weren’t working out, and he needed support. During the conversation he realised we could do more than those two roles. Instead of having an office, he could fully outsource the bookkeeping and admin to us, covering all bases, including accounts payable and credit control. Outsourcing would provide one all-round solution for a whole office of roles.
Having the Total Team behind you means having back up for lots of tasks, but it also means you don’t have to oversee the work. You’re still very much involved, but we can fully take the responsibility off your hands. Plus you won’t need to factor employee benefits, like pension contributions, into the cost. It doesn’t mean you can’t bring the bookkeeping back in-house down the line as you grow - we may just be the interim support. We can even help you find the right person for the task when it comes to it.
We also have no problem collaborating with other professionals you trust - business coaches, virtual assistants, other finance people.
We believe in a ‘start small’ mentality
Working with us doesn’t mean everything has to change immediately. We don’t want to overwhelm you - instead we’d rather move at a speed you’re comfortable with.
Signs you need support with the finances:
- You don’t know how much money is coming in and out of your business on a monthly basis
- You’re afraid to make big money commitments because you’re always scared of a big bill coming in
- You’re struggling to get staff paid every month because payroll is a big task
- You’re spending your weekends catching up with bookkeeping tasks
- You’re fed up chasing payments and hate chasing your clients all the time
If anyone of these are feeling familiar, or you’re overwhelmed in any other way - just start small. Tell us what’s bothering you the most and we can help you get unmuddled.
You can see more info about the kinds of things we do on our How We Work page.
Or you can skip that, and jump straight to getting advice by filling out our form. No commitment, just a friendly chat about getting your weekends back. The dream!
