Online Accountants

I can remember the day when I used to trudge into town to visit my local high street accountant. After having wasted 30 minutes in the car, I then had to find a place to park (whilst paying a small fortune) and sit and wait at reception whilst my advisor finished off his session with the previous client. AFter having gone through all og this, I then had to sit through, well let’s face it, exactly what I’d seen and heard the previous year!

Well, it’s now time for me to fight back against the world of black suits and professionalism, I now have an alternative online. I remember a few years ago when I first came across cheap accounting online. The internet in those day was a pretty soft target. Any Johnny come lately with a practising certificate could build himself a website and trade online. There was no trading history, no reputation that had been accumulated over a period of years. Instead there was doubt and mystery.

However, things have now changed. The world of cheap accounting has now changed into a very competitive environment, which if done properly can result in small fortunes for the owners. The onliners now have to be every bit as professional as their counterparts on the high street. They require considerable funds to invest each year in search engine optimisation and internet marketing. They face humiliation via forums and hateful blogs of they make the slightest mistake. It used to be the case that if you made a mistake, all the local town with a population of 80,000 knew about your failure. Now the stakes are that much higher. If things go wrong online, the whole of the UK with a population of 80 million will know about it!

It used to be the case that the onliners had no track record, again things have changed. Websites display trophies and certificates showing a track record of achievement spanning the last decade. Coupled with the fact that these guys have a turnover that would put the local high street accountant to shame, I would argue that the web traders have every bit as much credibility as the local guy and at a lower price to boot.

It is with this in mind that I decided to take the lower price online and haven’t looked back since. If I have a query, I simply take advantage of the unlimited support offered via email – it’s every bit as good a service that would have been provided via traditional methods.

Take any company – in any sector – and it is quite likely that important departments function independent of timely input from each other, though closely interrelated functionally. To streamline work processes and improve productivity, the Finance and Sales departments should be coordinated. If each has well-established processes in place and sticks to these, the required alignment and achievement of common goals will not happen. This drift is accelerated when these departments use standalone solutions for CRM and accounting. To get these disconnected systems into sync is a time-consuming task and the organization itself may be willing to let the drift continue rather than making a one-time effort towards alignment. In a professional services organization, the services team gets caught in the crossfire. Sales department sets over-optimistic targets and Finance strictly monitors and controls each dollar earned and spent.

Customers are also affected by the divide. The finance department may not know the status of a sale or outcome of a customer meeting and may chase debts/issue invoices inappropriately. The service department may not be aware of issues raised by customers to other departments. Customers reporting issues may not receive good service if the departments are uncoordinated. In such situations, the company is damaging its customer relationships, operating inefficiently, impacting cash flow and jeopardizing future bookings.

One Solution for All

The solution to this issue is ensuring that all the departments in the organization work together towards a common goal. The customer’s needs, issues and most importantly cash flow cannot take a backseat because of a lack of internal coordination.

All the affected departments must work together towards resolving this problem. They must ensure that all the major processes are aligned and that personnel are aware of the overall scheme of things. Organizations can get the much-needed sync by switching to a common cloud platform for the sales, services and finance departments. By working from connected CRM that shares the same data as the financial application and professional services automation tool, errors and discrepancies that inevitably occur when separate systems are used can be eliminated. Manual efforts are dramatically minimized, hence reducing the work of the sales team and the risk of making mistakes. A common platform is also ideal for monitoring whether a customer is credit worthy. The sales team can consult the credit background before selecting prospects or deciding what discounts or deals to agree with customers. They can view the status of the credits and also help with collections. In this way, all the three departments, sales, services and finance, complement each other.

Collaborative Tools

Organizations can also benefit from the collaborative tools available with cloud platforms like Force.com from Salesforce.com. Built in business collaboration tools like Chatter provide a stream of business alerts and conversation, which dramatically helps to improve intra-organizational communication. This real-time collaboration is very important for all the departments of the organization to have visibility about every aspect of the business relevant to them in real-time.

Business owners understand the importance of their investments. It is imperative to know and be sure if the business is earning or losing, or if it needs some restructuring. And this can only be done by having a good accounting system. However, it is also true that not all entrepreneurs are good at numbers; much less, at accounting. That is why a lot of them resort to hiring accountants.

Accountants are professionals and are under a regulating body. Among these bodies are the IASB and FASB. Their main concern is to analyze the progress of a business and find out if there is more money coming in than the money going out or vice versa. It is the accountant who gives the clients sound advice of what strategies and moves the company must make. In short, the accountant works hand-in-hand with the entrepreneur to make sure the investment is going fine.

However, even as this may be the case, complaints are often heard from business owners themselves about their accountants. Here are among the most common complaints heard.

1.The client cannot get the accountant when the need arises and that the accountant does not return phone calls.

This is a common concern of clients. This is probably because one must have taken, instead of an accountant, a tax agent. When there is a need other than tax concerns, the one hired may not be very effective and finds it hard to explain oneself to the client. This is also probably the reason why phone calls are not returned. Furthermore, tax agents are concerned with past transactions and records which are necessary for completing a tax return while the accountant looks at future plans and works closely with the owner not only with tax issues but with the finances of the company.

What can be done?

The quickest and best solution to these complaints is to find another accountant. There is no point in staying with an accounting group that does not satisfy the needs of the client.

In doing so, the owner should review all tax returns and financial statements done by the accountant. Questions and clarifications have to be made before leaving this accountant so that ample and accurate information may be provided to the new accountant.

In choosing a new accountant, one should go for someone who works at a level that is higher than the previous one. After this is done, the owner must inform the first accountant that their services will no longer be needed for the next month.

Should the old accountant bill unreasonably, this should be clarified by the owner. Moreover the new accountant should have to formally inform the previous accountant of the changes.

2.Accountants never recommend what to do to improve things and that they are useless.

Many company owners say that their accountants are useless because they cannot produce management accounts on time. In answer to this, accountants say that it is their clients that do not provide the pertinent information on time.

Though the fault is on both sides, it is important for the accountant not to commit to something that it cannot fulfill because this can just disappoint the client. On the other hand, the client should be specific about what services are needed by the company. The manager, owner, or director should not presume that the accountant knows everything that is needed by the company.

If finding a new accountant will prove futile, then another solution is to get an accounting software. Software for accounting does not need to be operated by an accountant. This can be done even by the owner if knowledge and training are more than just basic. Accounting software packages are available and convenient. Like Shoebooks, a company that offers accounting software, the program can be installed on any computer. And since this is online, the account may be accessed by anyone who has the password from any computer or laptop anytime. This software for accounting provides power in the hands of the owner.

So if you’re looking for cheap accountants online, what should you expect? The problem with trading online these days, is you are often faced with a saturated market that is tough to break into for all those without specialised seo knowledge.

Anyone trading online nowadays should have an understanding of methods to conquer the various search engines, i.e. how you can appear high in the rankings for the search phrase. Hence, unless you possess a large pot of money to throw at SEO, you probably are confronted with operating inside a particular niche or accounting sector. Hence the emergence over the past few years of specialist accountants who tailor their services to suit the various search engines.

For instance, you’ll find cheap accountants online providing just tax refund services. They often ask you for a fee of approximately 15% associated with a tax received, but this is all they concentrate on and for that reason offer very efficient, economical services.

Another useful niche is that of contractor accountancy services. Contractor accountants often give a range of services targeted at the IT contractors who run their very own limited company at home. Simple as it sounds, the contractors will require annual accounts, corporation tax returns, self assessment income tax returns and payroll services. Again though, there are deals available which means you should look around to get the best price. The market is very competitive, with many similar services providers and so the ball is in your court.

Apart from the construction industry scheme accountants, there are very few niches left to discuss. Again, the CIS accountants process tax statements for any small charge and claim the right tax refund. Overall though, there is nothing more to be had online that the high-street accountant couldn’t have given for the same price. Online however, has the benefit that’s not provided by your local professional.

With one of these niches out of the way, we’re left with the general practitioners who attempt to trade online on the national basis. So far as I’m concerned though, no particular accountant sticks out. This could imply that they are all spreading their resources too far and have ended up as the proverbial jack of trades that simply can’t get far enough in the search engine ranking positions to face out of the crowd.

However, with this particular scathing criticism in mind, I would now prefer to claim that you ought to be utilizing an online accountant, for that simple reason that the costs are extremely much lower. The overall accountancy services required could be provided by literally anyone with a practising certificate. Shop around, get the best price and be thankful there finally is an alternative to overvalued high-street equivalents.