In Pursuit of Profit
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When your business is growing and requires additional capital to keep it moving in the right direction, it will need to decide how to come by that funding. This is a complicated decision that can benefit substantially from the expertise that an experienced financial leader like a CFO or Controller can provide to the business’s owner or CEO. But, regardless of which avenue a business takes, it will need to be prepared to open itself up to scrutiny by funders. Companies looking for funding need to have the right essentials in place to land the money they are hoping to secure. Whether the funding will come from a bank loan, grant, angel investor, VC or private equity firm, corporate investor, or other type of financier, applying requires the right kind of financial planning and preparation. Simply put, you will need to not only have your financial house in order but be able to prove it! This is where your accounting team is instrumental in the process. 5/13/2024 How to Stretch in HiringAs recruiters, we often talk with clients that have an extensive list of everything they would like in their next hire. Sometimes this includes items that cause employers to voluntarily get in their own way of filling their open roles. We hear things like, “We want an up-and-comer that can grow with the company” or “This person needs to be 100% on-site” or “They need to have an accounting degree.” While it’s good to know what you want, more often than not these kinds of limitations lead employers to pass on candidates who are actually well qualified for their roles. For this reason, it may be worth stretching your hiring parameters to get an open role filled. We all know that unemployment continues to be at near record lows (and it’s even lower in the accounting and finance field!), which means you need to be prepared to be flexible. Removing the assumptions of what you need from your mind may be the first step in the right direction of getting your role filled. Even if it feels a little bit uncomfortable at first, stretching is good for your hiring efforts! Previously, we put together a business record retention resource to answer the question, “How long do you need to keep business records?” It gave clear record retention recommendations based on standard business practices for tax filings, audits, property ownership, insurance, employment records, and permits/licenses. And yet, only five years later we’re revisiting the topic because there is growing confusion around how long companies and nonprofits should retain their records now that so many of them are digital. The question we’re being asked today is, “How long do I need to keep digital business records – are the rules different?” Time and time again we have clients come to us expressing regret over their accounting hiring decisions. They say things like: “…We hired what we could afford and the person we brought in is totally underqualified…” “…We’ve had so much turnover in the role – we just can’t keep anyone, and we don’t have the budget to get someone who will stick around…” “…We simply can’t find what we’re looking for these days at the price we’re willing to pay…” “…We put off hiring because we didn’t want to spend the money before, but now we’ve waited far too long and we need to find someone immediately!..” The lesson here is clear – trying to cut costs with accounting hiring is always going to cost more in the long run! Let’s look at why hiring a “cheap” accountant is actually more expensive than hiring a good accountant and how you can improve your hiring strategy. A resource offered in partnership between The ASP Team and CFO Selections One commonality among our businesses at The ASP Team and CFO Selections is that we often talk to business leaders that aren’t sure which kind of accounting role they need. They typically understand the duties they would like the person to perform and the deliverables they expect to receive, but they aren’t sure what to call the role exactly. Without the proper title it makes it difficult to hire into the role or find an accounting services company to provide exactly what they need. Sometimes clients will come to us at The ASP Team saying that they need a “bookkeeper” as a catch-all phrase for someone doing any kind of accounting work but what they are really looking for is something more – an Accountant, Senior Accountant, or even Controller. Similarly, sometimes clients will come to us at CFO Selections saying that they need a “CFO” as a catch-all phrase for someone doing more advanced accounting work or leading an accounting team but what they actually need is something less – a Controller, Accounting Manager, or Senior Accountant. How do you know which you need? 4/15/2024 Artificial Intelligence Already Powers A/R and A/P – Are Budgeting and Forecasting Next Up?As accounting consultants, we have seen AI usage increase dramatically over the last five years across daily accounting activities throughout organizations of all sizes. So, where is AI most widely used in bookkeeping and accounting these days? When it comes to AI in accounting, A/R and A/P augmentation has proven to be the low hanging fruit. As accounting technology has grown more sophisticated machines have been tasked with doing these types of repetitive functions that have traditionally bogged organizations down with manual work. With A/R and A/P already being powered by AI, what can we expect next? Usually, we discuss more specifically focused accounting and bookkeeping topics to share in-depth industry knowledge with our readers. However, today we’re going back to the basics to answer a fundamental question: “What does an accounting services provider do?” Simply put, an accounting provider does less than full-time work. This work can be either ongoing part-time work or short-term work (which includes interim engagements and project-based work). What does that entail exactly? Research shows that today’s bookkeepers and accountants are making mistakes as their workloads have increased due to economic volatility and newly enacted regulations. The data also shows that the more capacity constrained accounting professionals are, the more likely they are to make data errors on manual work and miss issues when conducting regular reviews on accounting records. And while this certainly does not mean accounting professionals across the board are doing poor work, even the best accountants are feeling the pressure. As their time continues to be squeezed and their responsibilities expanded, good accountants are finding that they need to work even harder to maintain the top-notch work that they are doing. The result is an environment more conducive to burnout and errors regardless of the integrity and work ethic that they bring to the role. If your books are messy due to overworked bookkeeping and accounting staff or turnover in those roles, you need to be able to figure out what needs to be fixed, understand how to fix it, and take a proactive approach to avoid future accounting issues! |
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5/20/2024