Every savvy business owner knows that Cash Flow is the Life Blood of every business – even more so for small businesses where cash is a rare and precious commodity! Unfortunately, monitoring of cash flow is something that is often overlooked when business owners get entrapped in the daily operations of their business.
What many small business owners don’t realize is that a staggering 80 percent of businesses fail within the first 18 months and one of the main causes is poor financial management. Despite these dire consequences, many business owners still go at it alone when it comes to managing of their money.
There are some very good reasons to why business owners put off hiring an outsourced accountant.
Firstly, many business owners have prepared various financial statements such as Income and Expenditure Statements or Financial Budgets during their studies or adult working life, and are confident of handling the accounts on their own.
Secondly, the advent of powerful accounting software such as Quickbook and Xero makes it easy for any business owner to quickly and easily create invoices, track inventories, track customer/vendor aging, print on-demand reports as well as audit-proof the books, furthering their confidence that accounting for a small business like theirs would be a walk in the park.
Well, truth be told, when you’re running your own small business you end up juggling a lot of different roles and hiring an outsourced accountant is one investment that can really make a difference to your company’s growth. The expertise and knowledge of an accountant is invaluable and Singapore Online Accounting Services (SOAS) has 5 reasons why.
- Accounting in accordance to Singapore Accounting Standards (SAS)
Accounting is more than just knowing your ins and outs and accounting software merely eliminates the debits and credits – you still need to recognise and account correctly, the various types of income such as operating revenue vs dividend incomes or gains and losses incurred from foreign exchanges or assets that were written off. Receipts from purchases also need to be either inventorised or expensed off.
Over the years, SOAS found that many business owners also forget to track and account for items like depreciation, out-of-pocket expenses and home office space. Most importantly, don’t leave money on the table!
- Preventing hefty penalties and fines
One of the key things when it comes to finances and working for yourself is keeping on top of the paperwork and avoiding any late penalty fines. Having the work outsourced to an accountant makes sense so that you don’t need to worry about looming dates or be familiar with the latest legislation and their requirement. SOAS can help you keep on top of all your regulatory and compliance requirements.
- Enjoy the support of an entire team!
Having a full-time professional bookkeeper or accountant is a great asset to a company. However, having a team of professional accountants working on your books is definitely better than having an in-house employee keeping them!
Let’s face it, there are just tons of accounting loopholes and one individual just isn’t enough to catch all of them! Outsourcing your accounting operations affords you a team of people, all double-checking each other at the price of hiring that one in-house accountant, that includes creative agency too!
- Dealing with Investors, Venture Capitalists, Bank or even the Government
Whether you are seeking fresh capital investment, taking a bank loan or applying for a governmental grant, every potential stakeholder wants to know your financial status – and it’s not just your Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Statements reports! SOAS helps to prepare financial projections and other reports to get a better grip on the numbers so that you can create a business plan that’s realistic, professional that’s more likely to succeed in securing the much-needed funds!
- Professional Business Advisory
Accountants do more than tax filing. We take a comprehensive assessment of your finances and create a forecast through the year to keep your business at a healthy, prosperous state. Having worked with many companies across the various industries, SOAS can support you by identifying potential pitfalls and advise you how to make strategic decisions.
As an entrepreneur, your focus should be on running your business. Investing in a professional accountant and engaging us as your ongoing tactical business advisor will assist you in maintaining that focus and simultaneously keep you on the road toward your business goals.
