Bookkeeping is a critical business activity. Often performing admin duties, bookkeepers also provide you with support across other tasks. But, as your business grows and you need more information to manage your business, can they offer you all the skills you really need?
If you do a search on a job site for a bookkeeper, the term ‘all-rounder’ comes up time and time again. Now you have to ask the question: “Finance is a very specialised area, so am I really seeking an admin all-rounder to do this job?”
Are Your Accounting and Cash Flow Management Systems Ineffective?
When a business experiences fast growth, they often don’t find the time to build their systems. And, sometimes when work is urgent, a business owner will hire someone to get the project off their plate instead of building a clear, effective system.
This issue boils down to poor planning in the business. The business owner doesn’t really have a well-defined job description for the finance team, or a defined processes around administration.
Whilst “all rounders” supported an urgent need at a particular point in the business’ growth, it is only a quick solution.
As the business becomes busier, more hours go into bookkeeping – but reviewing the procedure and the process of managing the books gets pushed aside.
So, you’ve got an inefficient system, and growing the business just puts more pressure on it. To make matters worse, you’ve got the wrong person doing the wrong job.
The reason for this is bookkeepers are not given the requisite training. And, the salary that you’re paying them, at Australian rates, doesn’t support somebody who is trained to give extensive advice. This is where a Virtual CFO can support your business.
Sequel VCFO’s virtual system
Technology has advanced to a point where we can work with you through the cloud – making our business virtual. Now, you can have your questions answered and get advice quicker than was previously possible. And, because of this, you can pay for advice that would have been unaffordable before.
Bookkeepers can be very expensive. But, when you look at what these bookkeepers actually produce, most of the time they just copy data into a software program. It doesn’t add up if the goal is to create value for your business.
In terms of set tasks, your bookkeeper may not be doing a bad job, but you have this massive opportunity cost: for a similar or slightly higher price, you can get so much more.
By engaging a service like Sequel VCFO, you can get a bookkeeper, a financial controller and a CFO when you need them – such as when a bookkeeper is under pressure, only has time to do the books, and is unable to look after your business in a wider sense.
The other opportunity you may be missing is that part of the bookkeeping role can now be automated.
If you’re running a business, you’re looking for a competitive advantage.
Sequel VCFO has a virtual system and everything is automated, saving your business money.
External accountants look after your external issues. Your bookkeeper looks after your bookkeeping and, in some cases, your admin. For financial help in your business, there is a specialist position – and there’s a reason that bigger businesses have this. That position is the Chief Financial Officer.
A full-time CFO, however, would cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars annually. That’s where Sequel VCFO can come in and really help. We know at what points of the accounting cycle you need different levels of advice, so we can plan the best budget. We don’t have to spend hours and hours producing reports to tell you what’s happening in your business because there’s so much technology that we use to do it faster.
Want to learn more about our Bookkeeping and Management Accounting Service? If so, you can find more information here.