Firstly we will make this clear that this is what we believe here at nextAdvisory and how we see the market unfolding as well as what we are hearing from business owners.
We believe that the traditional role of an accountant – preparing various tax returns, sets of accounts and filing your companies office annual return, is becoming more and more redundant as technology advances and business owners seek a bit more hands on help.
Business owners benefit from having an independent person come along with them on their business journey. Someone they can confirm their thinking with, bounce ideas around with, talk to when things aren’t working. You know, a partner – pretty basic really.
However we like to put flash titles on this like advisory, consultant, coach, accountability expert. This is because it can be tricky to explain exactly what it is that we do sometimes because what we do do can be so broad.
Instead of just saying – ‘Hey if you’ve got a business problem, tell us because we’d really like to help you solve it so that you can continue running the best business possible’, we have been known to confuse people with terms you can’t understand.
Admittedly we do it at times too, calling ourselves nextAdvisory. nextAdvisory was our take on what ‘advisory’ is and what it’ll be next. From there we built out some core service solutions for our clients and then tailor them to the individual business.
As an example, our ‘The Winning Formula’ is setting a plan for the business for the next 12 months. A plan to achieve what you want to achieve, not us, we are just there to help you do it. For some people this is more time with family, doing less work, finding new staff, more profit and for others business owners this is to sell the business.
Every business is different and those involved have different goals. What ever winning looks like to you, we want to help you along the journey.
Do you have ‘ Money In The Bank?’ – that’s pretty important when you are in business. In fact it is critical as with the fuel (money), your car (business) will stop running. This is why we built a service out to help people be better prepared for the cash ups and downs of business, how to make more money and how to collect it faster. Whether this is reviewing your trade terms, chasing debtors or forecasting the next 12 months of cash, we help you solve the problem.
What about Xero? We often hear ‘I thought Xero did it all for me’ – well that is partly true but only if you know how to use it properly. A fishing rod won’t catch you a fish if you don’t know how to use it probably. In fact you might end up with a right mess if you never wind the reel OR nothing at all if you put the wrong end in the water.
Xero is brilliant for small business, in fact it is game changing and makes everyone’s job easier when used to it’s full potential. How do you know if you are using it to it’s full potential – well you probably won’t until someone either tells you or you read some of our Xero tips in our News section
The best thing about Xero is that it tidies up a lot of the historic mundane tasks that used to get in the way of accountants genuinely helping their businesses. With the available add ons (extra pieces of software) it can solve further business problems to save you time and often money. Another beautiful thing about Xero is that it helps us work with business owners to look forward (you’ve probably heard us say ‘What’s Next’ a number of times) instead of talking about historic numbers. This makes it easier to make more proactive business decisions.
Business isn’t easy, anyone in business will tell you this. Sometimes it can be a lonely place and you just need to talk to someone about it. There is no reason that this can’t be your accountant or your business advisor. They are there to help you, listen to you and make suggestions to keep you going. Accountants aren’t miracle workers but they love to watch business owners succeed and be a part of the journey.
We like to speak to our clients in a language they can understand, that’s why one of our core values is #translator because we aren’t offended that you don’t understand the numbers or the jargon language accountants can speak in. Part of going on the journey with a business owner is to understand their language and better communicate to them in this language. Speaking of values, part of ‘The Winning Formula’ process is to identify your business values that are important to the business and form part of it’s actions.
Of course, business owners would still have the right to expect their accountant to prepare what we like to call ‘The Given’ – accounts, tax returns and necessary work to ensure you comply with business best practice.
If you want to book in for a chat about how we can help you along your business journey, you can book us online – pretty modern right?
