​AccountingWeb and IRIS recently conducted some research with small business owners to identify if accountants are delivering the right sort of service to meet their demands.  The results were interesting with indications that accountants may not truly understand their own customers, and customers showing that they are looking at their own businesses more strategically.

Below is a recording of the webinar that I was invited to join to discuss the communication gap between small business owners and accountants.  The key message in the webinar is that accountants should streamline the compliance work to allow them to focus on the added value services that clients are now expecting.  

The Zoosme Accountants model is very much focused on delivering advisory and support services in line with delivering the compliance that is needed for the small business clients.  Zoosme Accountants have been driven by technology in order to make the compliance work more accurate, and more efficient to deliver to give our clients peace of mind and allow them to continue to run their own businesses.

Moving forward, Zoosme Accountants will continue to talk to small business owner, listen, and then respond accordingly  to ensure we deliver the services that are expected from our clients and prospective clients.

Many businesses invest in and implement new software solutions to increase productivity in their business.  However, the installation and training in the software is only part of the solution - you need to change your processes too.

I have worked with hundreds of business owners and managers over the years with one particular problem; the implementation of new software to improve productivity.  I am always amazed at how some of these managers have asked to implement the solution around existing processes.  This often leads to issues with the capabilities of the software and results in project failure - the wagging blame finger always being pointed at the software vendor.

The most successful software implementations are done with individuals in the business that are willing to change their processes around the capabilities of the software. I am now witness to this behaviour on a daily basis when I work with small business owners and their adoption of cloud based accounting solutions.

Technology has significantly changed the way we work today.  However, does it improve or impede productivity.  Let's look at email as an example.  Email can help you achieve some of your daily tasks, but if you were to get through your inbox, have you fulfilled your role?  The answer will be no as email is just part of a process.  More often than not, there is a better way to communicate rather than email - ever considered talking to someone? Not just on the phone, but face to face? Email is a great tool for sending documents or information to multiple people with an audit trial.  There are more effective ways to communicate today, so just think before accessing your inbox and finding that daily dose of procrastination.

Many of the small businesses I meet with before implementing the tools we work with have processes in place that they created themselves.  The challenge here is to encourage them to step away from their intellectual property and see a better way of working.  It is not about showing them a demo though.  It is about showing them how to do more with less. Less time, and less money.  It's about making changes to their processes and the way they work.

Technology allows us to change our working patterns.  Our working pattern tends to be 9am to 5pm. In this day and age, this is a monasterial way of working and we are not driven by bells anymore - unless, of course, you are actually a monk.  Technology allows us to work more on our time.  If you need to take your children to school, then take your children to school.  If you need to work from home, then work from home.  It is time to start working to your pattern with technology to support you.  As a human, you can be more productive by doing things on your terms.  Get more motivated, get more done.  Change the process and use technology to keep you connected.  This is how I work with my clients - I am connected to their businesses at all times and engage with them on their terms.

Small business are always under pressure to do more with less.  Sometimes it is just worth taking that one step outside to look in and step back in with change in mind.  For the clients that I have worked with, I have seen huge changes in the way they work.  Not only that, but I have seen them change personally by easing time pressures and automating processes for them.  A small business owner should focus on their core business at the front of house and not worry about the things going on in the back office.  This focus will increase productivity, resulting in increased profitability and success. If you want to get a feel for a better way of working, try KashFlow Software for 14 days for free.

Accountants have been the butt of many a joke for years but it seems that a few are breaking the mould and becoming trendsetters in business.  Times are changing.  And for the record, actuaries make accountants look like stuntmen!

So what's happened?  The role of the accountant continues to involve tax computations, report writing, form filling, keeping up to date with legislation, and plenty of other monotonous jobs that nobody really wants to do.  However, thanks to great software writers and process engineers, a lot of the work is done by automated computer processes - I bet your accountant doesn't tell you that.

Well maybe that's because they don't operate that way.  Maybe that's why you have large professional fees, and maybe that's why you never hear from your accountant.  They're simply too busy ensuring that your business is compliant.  And that's what you're paying them for.

That's still a pretty dull job though, right?  As an accountant, I didn't study for years to complete forms or produce repetitive tax computations.  In my view, the role of an accountant is to support clients.  This means not only support in ensuring the business is compliant and not liable to the penalties enforceable by HMRC, but also to ensure that the business is on track to continue to grow, develop, and remain successful.  At the end of the day, a successful business is a retained client.  It's simply in our interest to ensure the business in driven to succeed.

So how does an accountant do that I hear you ask? What do we know?  Well we work with lots of different types of businesses across many different industries which are all set up and run differently.  We engage with these clients and talk to them about their business.  It takes up time, but we learn.  Learning about the client, the business, the product, the staff, the success stories and the problems.  And we listen.  Everyday is a school day.  In return we offer advice, a solution, and sometimes, just a bit of compassion.  WHAT? Accountants are human beings afterall.  And that is something that makes accountants cool - we're a people business; not a paper business; and not a numbers business.

Back to the technology now.  Accountants are known to be the architects of solutions using Excel.  Excel is a great tool.  However, a spreadsheet is simply a generic productivity tool that's a work around solution for all things.  It's not an accounting solution, and it's not a business reporting solution.

Now I have worked with some amazing business analytics solutions in the past, so I'm very aware of the barriers that are in place to move onto one of these reporting platforms.  A small business simply does not have £30,000 to spend on reporting in their business.  However, there are tools aimed at small business owners that are cost effective from as little as £5 per month that deliver results that can help you make better decisions for your business. 

I'm very proud to say that I'm a KashFlow partner.  I've been working with the solution since 2009 as both a business owner and as an accountant.  It works!  It works really well!  In fact, I would'nt run a business without.  But I am, of course, very biased.  I'm a KashFlow partner afterall.  But I have tried others.  I have tried them all.  And I choose KashFlow because it works! It works really well!

As an intuitive accounting solution, the software offers more than accounts.  In fact, it doesn't feel like an accounting solution, and it doesn't look like an accounting solution.  That's because it's more than an accounting solution.  It's a tool that's a business productivity tool tailored to how you wish to run the back office of your business.  Sending invoices is simply not sending an invoice.  It's a record.  A record of sales. A record of outstanding debt.  A record of cash received. And a record of VAT.  And all you did was send an invoice.  It's cool.  And working in an accountancy practice with this tool with our clients makes us cool, and our clients cool.

The days of form filling are numbered.  The Government are even moving away from forms.  Read more here. Businesses are becoming smarter and are choosing to adopt smarter techniques to build, produce, serve, and deliver.  This is the same in the back office.  Be smarter.  Work smarter.  But most of all, be cool!!

For those business owners that are not accountants, we understand that you did not start up a business to become an accountant. In fact, the thought of managing finance often brings out the cold sweats and butterflies in your stomach. Don’t worry, you can deal with it another day, just jot it down on a piece of paper!!

Writing something down on a piece of paper or in a book is one way of keeping records. However, the information that you have just stored is now only visible in that book or on that piece of paper. What if you need to use that information for something else? The monthly sales summary? Listing the companies or individuals who owe you money at the end of the month? VAT? That piece of paper with the key information is massively important to you and your business, but the information does not lend itself to other processes by being written down in this way. So if the information is needed to help you better understand your business and run the back office processes, why not get that information into a system that uses that key piece of data for lots of other processes.

Using a cloud based accounting system allows business owners to record information from anywhere at anytime. Mobile apps allow you to send invoices on the go. And let’s be honest, sending invoices is the most important financial function for you as a business owner, especially if you are on the move all the time doing jobs for lots of customers. But when you send that invoice to your client, the following things will automatically be updated if you use accounting software. VAT (if applicable) will be recorded and posted into the balance sheet and consolidated with other sales and purchase data ready for the next VAT return. Your debtors, the people who owe you money, will be updated if the client did not pay at the time of invoicing. This will allow you to monitor the cashflow and your client credit limits, and be notified as soon as the payment date has passed. Essentially, you can forget about monitoring the payment until you receive the notification. And you will also be able to review the company performance for that day/week/month/quarter/year at that point in time and compare it to the same time period for the day/week/month/quarter/year before. All of this for sending out one invoice - which you would have had to do anyway.

Using intuitive cloud based accounting systems like Kashflow allows business owners to be more productive in the front office by being more efficient in the back office. Business value is not achieved by working on your books late into the evening or on weekends. That may be one way of getting things done, but I like to think that people have better things to do than paperwork.

I understand that if you as a business owner have been doing things a certain way for years, finding the motivation to change is difficult. You may have looked at accounting systems years ago and didn’t like the terminology or accounting jargon in the software. I know, I didn’t like it either. Software development has changed. Gone are the days where substance over form ruled. The premise back then was to build software to get jobs done. The developers rarely gave two hoots about the end user experience just as long as it worked. Today, the tables have turned and software adoption through great, easy to navigate, easy to understand user interfaces have taken over. All of a sudden colours do matter, the ability to customise functionality matters, and brand matters, with all of this being easy to do within the software by the end user themselves. And this is what has been achieved. Not only that, the functionality is designed for the business owner and not the accountant. It’s for you!!

If you are feeling sceptical about the simplicity of a cloud based solution, why don’t you try it for free for 14 days by clicking here. 

The role of today’s accountant is to support their clients in growing and developing their business in line with improving processes which may be linked to the finance functions in the business, along with the traditional compliance requirements. Promoting technology and helping clients engage and adopt with this technology is now part of that role.

If you need any assistance, please feel free to get in touch with me or contact a member of the Zoosme Accountants team to walk you through any of the processes. Once you have engaged with us, you'll have to find another use for the stationery cupboard.

George Osborne announced on the 18th March 2015 that the self assessment tax return process is to be replaced by a new digital tax account. So what does it all mean?

The digital tax accounts are designed to reduce hassle for individuals and small businesses that currently need to adhere to the bi-annual payment process and strict deadlines of the 31st October for paper filing and 31st January for online filing. The new process is expected to reduce the time taken to complete a tax return from 40 minutes to 10 minutes on average. This will also result in a cost saving for individuals who use an accountant to help complete their returns.

For small businesses, the new process will help them manage cashflow in their business more effectively. Businesses that experience seasonality trends will be able to contribute more to the tax pot when times are good and reduce payments when the market slows down again. This sort of monitoring will encourage business owners to take a look at their business to assess performance on a more regular basis to better manage the regularity of tax payments to the new digital tax accounts.

The benefit of being linking your bank account to the digital tax account is that, not only can you manage the payments to the tax account to satisfy HMRC requirements, but any rebates will be received very quickly back from HMRC to you. It's simply ensuring that the money is sitting in the right place on an almost real-time basis. You should feel safe in the knowledge that your bank account is not linked for monitoring purposes but simply for payment transfer purposes.

The risk of penalties is now massively reduced now that individuals and small businesses can contribute to the tax account at any time. And for small businesses that have to pay lots of different taxes at different times (VAT, National Insurance, Corporation Tax, Income Tax), the process is getting much easier to manage.

The Government are also working smarter this way with long term savings to be achieved with reduced administration and benefits in payment collections and payments. The knock on effect will be more money available for public services.

There will be a knock on impact to accountants in reduced revenues for those traditional accountants that work with their clients in completing the self assessment process. Zoosme Accountants was set up to work digitally so this news does not impact us and we applaud the Chancellor for introducing a system that offers so many benefits to tax payers and the small business community. I would like to see more small businesses taking steps to keep better records and manage their business performance. Zoosme Accountants have launched a service to help clients adopt the new tax process and start to bring their own businesses up to date with new technology. Click here to get more information.

This news demonstrates that the Government is fully supportive towards small businesses adopting digital processes to better manage finance. I welcome any questions or comments. If you would like to discuss any accounting issues that are affecting your business please contact me on murray@zoosme.com.

On 1 April 2015, HMRC are introducing new VAT legislation on prompt payment discounts (PPD) to align the UK legislation with EU legislation.

HMRC have identified that there was a blackhole in the VAT system that resulted in revenue not being collected by the Government where discounts were offered and not taken up. The current rules allow for businesses to pay VAT back to the Government at the discounted rate regardless of whether the discount is taken up or not. Therefore, if all customers used the PPD term, there would not be an issue, but the rules allow for the business to make a profit on the transactions where the full amount is paid. This issue has got out of hand in more recent years where these discounts now being offered to consumers and less VAT is being paid to HMRC.

To overcome this the rules are changing. From 1 April 2015, VAT is to be paid on the full consideration actually received. The paperwork requirements are also changing with all prompt payment discounts being disclosed either on the full value invoice with a disclosure note about what the VAT is to be reclaimed by the customer should the PPD be accepted, or in the form of a credit note to be issued to the customer on receipt of discounted payment.

Both of these require more administration and for small businesses the impact of this additional administrative burden is bigger than the large companies that may have dedicated systems or finance teams to overcome these rules. The simplest approach is to adopt the issuing of a credit note. This means the template of the invoice does not have to be amended and does not require PPD VAT disclosures to be made on the invoice. A credit note is simply a negative invoice. These can be raised in your accounting solution in the invoice section with all values being entered as a negative value. The credit note can then be issued in the same way as the invoice.

If your accounting solution does not have this functionality, please get in touch and we can introduce you to a better way of managing the finances in your small business.

In summary, there is a change coming that will result in a HMRC blackhole being closed. Some businesses will see a financial impact as they can no longer profit from discounts not being taken from a VAT perspective. More of us will be impacted by the fact that we must ensure the correct records are kept in the event of a VAT audit.

The cloud based accounting and bookkeeping solution has been in use for almost a decade, but the uptake of such solutions has been slow with particular reference to established SME’s with strong relationships to the traditional accountant.

A survey conducted in 2014 showed that 72% of younger business owners would not engage with an accountant if they did not offer a cloud based solution to help them manage the day-to-day finances in their business. This compared to a percentage of 52% for all small business owners.

With big data being a buzz world in the world of commerce, the need for more information is become greater in line with the reliance of data to help make key business decisions.

Big data means different things to different people and different types of business, but the hunger for the safety blanket of data to support the decision making process is something not to be ignored. Accountants that work with small businesses are key in this role to support the small business owner in finding nuggets of gold in the data reserves of their business. This data may identify a trend in sales activity, or a produce a warning sign that there maybe trouble ahead. Either way, it allows the business owner to become proactive in the way they work in their company.

Intuitive cloud based accounting solutions like Kashflow give small business owners a comprehensive view of their business in real-time. The reliance on accountants to produce the management accounts is reduced with more control being passed to the business owner for the production of these reports. As a result, small business owners should see a dramatic fall in the costs for their accountancy services and see the role of their accountant as a trusted business advisor and not a form filler for financial compliance.

More accountants are being forced to change the way they work due to the increasing demands from forward thinking business owners. And as a result, the cloud based accounting revolution is to continue to march on leaving the traditional systems behind.