Why Your Business Will Benefit from Hiring an Accounting Firm

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Team Building Tips|Team Building Tips and Tricks for ManagersIf you are running a business, then chances are you constantly have a number of different things on your mind, one of which is likely going to worry about how you can keep up with your growth upon expansion. If you currently find yourself querying such a thing, then there are resources you can look at and learn from, but the fact is, the answer that is best for you will be different to what is best for other businesses. One reasonably universal step forward, though, is to hire an accounting firm.

As you grow, so too do the number of people you pay, your income and your overall outgoings, and with that, so too will your tax obligations change. Keeping up with these is very hard to do while running the rest of your business, hence why an accounting firm is an important asset. This article will dive into a bit more detail about why having such a firm on your side is useful.

Are You Looking to Buy an Accounting Firm?

Of course, it may be that you already know the value of an accounting firm and are currently looking out for one. If this is the case, then it is recommended that you head over to Poe Group Advisors, which buys and sells accounting firms. These will be able to listen to you and understand what your business does before making suitable recommendations.

The Benefits

So, what are the benefits of such a purchase?

You Will Save Yourself Time

It is recommended that different elements of your business are outsourced to other people because if you get too bogged down in the likes of legal, technology and, in this instance, accounting, you aren’t going to have any time to actually run your business. You want to be working on what it is that makes you unique and can generate income, not piling through pages upon pages of accounting in order to get to grips with the process and what you owe.

You Will Be Paying Employees in the Best Way

A good business is nothing without good employees and as such, it is important that you are paying them a fair wage, on time and in a way that benefits you and them equally. An accounting firm is going to be a lot more versed in working out the best way that you can pay your employees, as it is not always as simple as just handing over a paycheck. There are some complications that can present themselves along the way and as such, you will need an accountant to pre-empt these and pay your employees accordingly. The most common methods are either by salary or dividend.

You Will Get Access to Pieces of Accounting Software

There is a lot of good accounting software out there that can make inputting numbers and keeping on top of everything a lot easier. By hiring an accounting firm, you are going to get access to this software and also be able to work with someone who knows how to properly use it.

How To Cut Business Overheads

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article |Business Overheads|How To Cut Business OverheadsIt’s crucial that you spend money on your business. If you just set it up and hope that people will find it and start paying for your products and services, you might be lucky – this could happen – but it’s far more likely that you’ll make little to no sales and that your business simply won’t succeed. To be noticed, you need to spend money; you have to market effectively. Yet, in order to have the funds to market in the right way, you may need to cut back on other business overheads, especially at the beginning. With that in mind, here are some of the best ways to do that so that you can invest in your marketing strategy and start to build your business up.

Have A Review

The first thing you’ll need to do once you realize that you must cut back on your monthly business expenses is to have a review. Ideally, you should ask your accountant to help you since they will already be privy to the income and outgoings of your business and may already have some suggestions as to just what you can do to make things more streamlined. Assuming you have an accountant to do your booking keeping and other financial tasks, it’s time to engage them to give your books a thorough overview. They can then give you their opinion on what you can do away with entirely, what you can reduce, and what you’ll need to keep paying for.

If you don’t have an accountant, now is the time to hire one. Although it is an additional expense, your accountant will be able to ensure your business is running profitably, and they will take the financial tasks away from you, allowing you to concentrate on the marketing and other aspects of the business.

Speak To Your Employees

Although you may not think to do this initially, the fact is that your employees are crucial to your business, and they see a lot of things first-hand that you won’t see when you’re running the business. Therefore, it’s important to take this into account and speak to your employees about anything they have noticed that might be wasteful and, alternatively, anything that you’re not currently paying for that would enhance the business.

You don’t have to take their advice – this is your company, after all. However, it could be that some excellent ideas come from this consultation that you would never have considered before.

Buy In Bulk

Buying in bulk can help save money in many areas of your life, not just in business. Of course, you may need to spend more than you had intended to when you buy a lot of one product in one go, but if you can negotiate a good deal, you will be saving money overall when you consider the cost per item.

The key is to buy things that you know you will be able to sell – there is no point in getting a great deal on a product and then finding that no one wants to buy it. If you can pinpoint what your customers want and buy in bulk – saving money – and then sell at the usual price, your profits will go up and you will have reduced your outgoings at the same time.

4 Characteristics of a Modern Data Management Strategy

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StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Article |Data Management|4 Characteristics of a Modern Data Management StrategyClean, comprehensive data is one of the most, if not the most, useful assets at an organization’s disposal. Data analytics is a major driving force behind business leaders’ efforts to streamline operations, connect with new clients, and gain an advantage over competitors. Unfortunately, for many organizations, efforts to devise and execute strategic initiatives tend to be hampered by the need to spend significant amounts of time and financial resources toward compliance with regulatory mandates.

In the world of business today, regulatory standards and requirements change at dizzying speeds, shifting the needs and responses of financial institutions in turn. Hence, it’s more necessary than ever for organizational decision-making to be proactive, fast, and above all data-driven. If an organization’s workforce and resources are spread thin just attending to daily upkeep and scrambling to meet complex regulatory demands, it will have little time and energy left to focus on profitability.

Many digital solutions available today promise a stable data foundation that will allow companies to handle their information more accurately and efficiently. Employing such solutions is a key step for organizations to develop an up-to-date approach to data management. Some essential qualities a modern data management strategy must have include the following:

Well-Integrated and Unified

One of the greatest challenges organizations face when it comes to data management has to do with depending on siloed legacy systems that make it difficult to collect and reconcile data across multiple sources. Such essential areas as risk, compliance, treasury, and finance often make use of disparate databases and reporting tools. This fragmented approach can, in turn, hinder necessary interdepartmental communication and make it difficult to gain an enterprise-wide perspective.

Above all else, a modern data management strategy seeks to create a single, unified source of truth that is able to pull essential data from multiple sources. This ensures that useful information can be aggregated and accessed across all units within the enterprise. The right digital solutions will be able to perform these unifying functions with great efficiency and accuracy, reducing operational costs and eliminating the risk of redundancies and inconsistencies in your data.

Automation saves valuable time that would have been spent on data collection and reconciliation, allowing you to channel it toward more productive analytical efforts. With a clean, consolidated source of information at your fingertips, your organization will be well-equipped to mine deeper, more substantial business insights at a faster pace than before.

Agile and Adaptable

Demands from regulators, customers, and the market itself can shift radically by the day, if not by the hour. More often than not, organizations are then judged by how quickly and creatively they are able to respond. Hence, it’s imperative for any company to find ways to boost its business agility and react expeditiously to any major changes.

Manually sourcing, tracking, and verifying data across siloed systems is a slow and error-prone process that can be damaging to an organization’s overall performance and reputation. Utilizing an integrated data ecosystem that spans across the entire enterprise is an effective way of reducing reporting-related risks and costs. You’ll be able to access established data structures for known use cases and meet future business demands more quickly—even those you may not have foreseen.

Extensible and Scalable

A robust, extensible data ecosystem will protect your company from being caught off guard by changes in the business and regulatory environment. Look for all-in-one cloud-based data management services that will enable you to build applications that are highly scalable and support all data types, including graph data, relational data, and structured or unstructured nonrelational data. Utilizing this technology ensures that your organization will have access to all the information it needs, presented in the most productive possible way, at any given time.

As previously mentioned, having to spend less time on reconciliation opens up more time for meaningful data analysis. More concretely, this means your company will have more space to develop insightful products and useful offers for customers, thereby driving overall profitability upwards.

Traceable and Transparent

The need to ensure data accuracy and integrity is one major reason manually compiling data for regulatory audits is so intensely time- and labor-intensive. Inconsistencies such as double entries and erroneous calculations can cost an organization dearly in penalty fees alone. The volume and granularity of such manual work, however, makes errors all but inevitable from even the most diligent and well-trained of personnel.

Good data foundation solutions, meanwhile, will be able to gather and process even the most difficult data and standards with ease. Such software likewise comes equipped with features for extensive data tracking, ensuring full transparency and comprehensive records throughout every step of the reporting process. Your company will no longer run the risk of missing deadlines, running up substantial operating costs, or facing hefty penalties.

As data interactions accelerate and more important information from the market becomes available in real time, developing an efficient data management strategy becomes a must for companies of any side. Organizations seeking to operate competitively today need a solid data foundation that can help them adapt to and rise above the demands of the current business landscape.

How To Be More Frugal As A Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article |Frugal Business|How To Be More Frugal As A BusinessAs an entrepreneur, one of your goals when starting your business is to make money. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean spending it all in the process. Being frugal is not only how you spend your time and/or money on day-to-day tasks but also how you invest in yourself or your business will go a long way.

Take note of some effective ways you can be more frugal in your business operations. Whether it’s being fully aware of how you are spending or investing money or just being mindful of wasting time, following these tips will help you manage your money better and improve the value of your company in the long run.

1. Being Mindful in Your Spending Will Improve Your Business’s Overall Quality

People, in general, are more frugal when they know or think that there is a limited amount of resources available to them, so start by keeping an eye on how you are spending your resources. For example, if you think that the resources at hand are not enough to cover investment in some equipment or material, you might want to re-evaluate your decision by restricting yourself from purchasing it.

2. Use Your Resources Wisely

An effective way of making your business more frugal is to make use of your resources wisely. While you may be tempted to use the mechanical equipment for as many tasks as possible, it will be more economical if you stick with one or two pieces of equipment that will only be used in certain aspects of your company’s operation.

3. Avoid Wasteful Practices

“Waste not, want not.” This old adage definitely applies to entrepreneurship because it is a matter of fact that entrepreneurs are typically resourceful people. To be more frugal as an entrepreneur, you need to avoid wasteful practices or processes by mindfully thinking about the next step your company should take after a certain action. For example, if you have a Law Firm and need to cut expenses, Lawyers Marketing Associates can help.

4. Rethink Your Priorities to Be More Frugal in the Long Run

On top of all that, you also need to rethink your priorities in terms of your business mission and vision. Is it more important to spend money on equipment or manpower? How about spending on marketing and promotion? Will it be beneficial to invest your money in a future project? These are all questions you need to consider before going ahead with a decision on how to spend your money.

5. Don’t Fall into the Instant Gratification Trap of Wasting Time

Lastly, don’t let yourself fall into the trap of wasting time. When you’re on a tight schedule, it may be difficult to spend quality time with your family and friends. That doesn’t mean that you should completely let go of those people in your life, though.

In Closing

Set aside some time for them so that they can see who you really are as an individual, not just as your company or business. This will help them understand you better, and the time spent with them will be well worth it in the long run, especially when you need to ask them for favors that can help your business grow.

6 Ways to Fund Your Small Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances CentralArticle |Fund your small business|6 Ways to Fund Your Small BusinessStarting a small business comes with many challenges. One of the major things to consider is how you will fund the creation, development, and growth of your business. There are different ways that you can fund a business using some of the below methods.

1. Secure a Business Loan

Business loans are very popular with those looking for initial investment for a new project. Loans designed for small business owners can come with more flexible terms than regular loans. This can help you to budget better and offers more financial freedom and agility when creating a new company. You can use a loan to buy the necessary equipment needed for the business, such as office equipment or security systems from an electrical wholesalers.

2. Ask Family and Friends

It can be much more cost-effective to get your hands on a loan from family and friends rather than a bank. This can allow you to pay back the loan over a longer period of time, or without as much interest. Offer family members or friends a percentage of the business in return for the loan.

3. Try Crowdfunding

While crowdfunding doesn’t work for every business, it is worth considering whether it could benefit your new project. Crowdfunding allows a large number of people to contribute relatively small amounts of money to fund a project. When it is complete, they either receive their money back or are given shares in the business, for example, in return.

4. Find a Private Investor

If taking out a bank loan doesn’t sound right for you, explore investments from private individuals or trusts. Often known as ‘business angels’, they could be exactly the right fit for your business. Working with experienced investors also allows you to benefit from real-life experience and knowledge as well as practical funding. You can secure these investments in the early stages of your business or when looking to grow a company.

5. Sell Business Assets

Once your business is established, selling its assets can be a good way to generate funds when needed. It is particularly useful in situations where you need to upgrade existing assets such as vehicles. You can sell equipment, for example, or trade it in for newer items. Selling assets that are no longer needed can generate funds for other areas of the business.

6. Explore Business Grants

There are a range of government and business grants available depending on which stage you are at with your business. Start-ups can often attract a broader range of grants, but that doesn’t mean existing businesses are completely excluded. Explore what’s available within your sector and see whether any grants might be viable for your business.

Finding ways to fund your small business isn’t always easy, but there are a variety of options to explore. The range of funding options available means you are likely to find something that might work for your business, either alone or as part of a combination of funding streams.