One of my friends loves doing DIY.
The problem is… He’s not good at it!
If you look too closely at the walls of his house, you can see where he ran out of paint and switched to a “similar” colour. Instead of ordering a small door to the cupboard under the stairs, he simply sawed a regular door down to size. And his plumbing is constantly running into trouble.
Clearly, he enjoys these projects. But learning on-the-job also has a cost, especially for his long-suffering wife. Whenever she calls him on it, he tells her the shoddy work is “good enough – and I’m getting better at it.”
This reminds me of so many business owners I know, who try and build their own finance departments despite having no expertise in the area.
They hire an accountant or two, usually with a bookkeeper, who themselves rarely have experience running a full finance department, certainly not in a corporate environment with the highest of standards.
Then they try and work out best practice as they go along.
In my experience, this is rarely done well. The processes they set up are often wrong or inefficient, long-winded and complex. And it takes a long time to institute all the processes the business needs, often years.
Sometimes companies do hire quality people. Still, virtually no company we’ve seen is set up as it should be.
One of the reasons – outside of even the best accountants’ control – is that these finance departments are usually too small to function according to the highest standards.
Professional accounting departments have a division of duties, whereby no one person is ever responsible for a transaction from start to finish; for example, you’d have one person initiate a transaction and someone else approve it. A good accounting department also has multiple check points – all designed to minimise the risk of error and fraud.
When there are only one, two or three people managing your finances, this critical step often gets missed.
As the business owner, you probably don’t realise this is a gap and don’t give it the attention it deserves…
…Until something goes horribly wrong – like a transaction that is mistakenly approved – costing you thousands.
You suddenly realise that your finance department isn’t as reliable as you thought when you look at it closely, and that your finances are not in the safest of hands.
So what’s the alternative?
Just as my friend should probably buy in the expertise of a proper painter and decorator and plumber, you can bring in the expertise of an outsourced finance department like ours.
This is not the same as hiring outside accountants who get in touch with you two or three times a year. We become an integral part of your company, working closely with you to set up an efficient, professional finance department in your business on your behalf.
And we set it up to the standards that a corporate would expect, even when you’re much smaller.
We have turnkey processes, systems and technology that we can have up-and-running in your business very quickly, because we’ve done it so many times for other businesses just like yours.
For example, we reconcile your bank accounts daily – a basic process to identify errors that most companies only carry out periodically, if at all. And everything we do for clients from monthly management accounts to VAT returns and purchases is reviewed and where necessary, authorised by a second person. We have proper division of duties.
There is no re-inventing the wheel here and no figuring it out as we go; we know what works and what best practice looks like, and we give it to you.
We also put our entire team to work on your behalf, so you have all the skills, experience and manpower that a fully-fledged finance department would have – from day one.
This way, you get it right first time instead of struggling with learning curve. You get a world-class finance department immediately, instead of in a decade’s time.
And this in turn allows you to trust your finance department and the financial information you receive, make better, more confident financial decisions and grow your company faster.
Are you ready to upgrade your accounting to world-class standards, and enjoy the benefits of reliable, professional, helpful financial management? If so, get in touch with me today to find out more about our outsourced financial management service, and how we may be able to work together.
Simply hit ‘reply’ to this email or call us on 01279 647 447, and let’s talk.
Warmly,
Garry
