KEEPING GOOD BOOKS
Starting up a business is a juggling act.
There are so many different areas that need your focus, and you want to keep all the balls in the air: legal, financing, sales and marketing, insurance, human resources, to name a few. It becomes very easy to place your attention in particular areas and neglect others.
Often it is the financial and accounting aspects that get neglected and left to resolve at a later point. It can be easy to think at this stage that getting professional financial support is an unnecessary financial burden.
However, it is at this initial point that having a firm understanding of the finances is crucial. Without the finances in place from the outset it is very easy for a start-up to trip and fall before it has started to even walk. Getting the right support from the outset is therefore imperative.
There are key benefits to appointing an accountant to support the business in this initial stage; to help keep the business on the correct path and avoid pitfalls.
An accountant can help with:
- Undertaking day to day bookkeeping and accounting services
- Ensuring your statutory requirements are met, keeping you on the right side of law, avoiding fines and penalties
- Ensure you are making the most of tax breaks available and advise you of tax liabilities due
- Making strategic decisions, providing insight and act as a sounding board
Bookkeeping and accounting services
Often, start-up business owners find themselves caught up in the everyday running of their business, ensuring customers’ needs are met, making sure any employees are working effectively.
It becomes easy for finances to be pushed aside as an unnecessary administration task. However, without a robust record of the day-to-day finances it becomes very difficult to know how the business is performing and whether business decision made are making financial sense.
And further down the line they can find themselves in a panic searching for old receipts and records to put together a set of yearly accounts, either to find funding or to submit returns to HMRC.
Accountants are well versed in the most effective bookkeeping method for your business.
There are numerous online bookkeeping packages available, each with their own pros and cons. With the ease of use of online accounting software, it can be very easy to enter transactions incorrectly. Accountants can ensure this is set up correctly for your business and that day-today entries are recorded accurately.
They can design reports that will help you know how your business is performing, looking into as much or as little detail as necessary. At this early stage of a business knowing if sales prices are sufficient to cover costs is crucial, as otherwise significant deficits can start to emerge.
Having an accountant to carry out these services takes one thing off your plate.
It gives you more time to focus on running the business rather than spending time trawling through invoices and bank statements.
You can focus on the parts of business that will generate income and earn you more profit.
Statutory requirements
When you are starting up a new business you don’t want to be keeping track of when you next need to make a return to the Government or pay a tax. An accountant will ensure that:
- accounts are prepared correctly and filed on time,
- that company and personal tax returns are completed accurately
- any VAT applicable is being charged correctly and returns submitted on time.
Tax breaks and tax liabilities
Nobody enjoys paying tax, but very few business owners fully understand the tax breaks and reliefs that are available to them.
An accountant can help to ensure you are making the most of tax reliefs you didn’t even know about; saving you money which you can reinvest into your start-up. For a start-up any cash savings that can be made are crucial.
If you don’t know taxes, it can be easy to get it wrong which can result in fines.
Having a professional accountant dealing with your taxes can minimise the changes of fines arising.
Strategy
When you are starting out on a new business venture it can be easy to look track of budgets and your goals.
An accountant can aid with preparing a robust business plan and financial model. They will challenge your assumptions, making sure that they are consistent and valid.
Without their insight it can be easy to prepare a business plan that doesn’t stand the test of real life, resulting in a business that will be unable to develop beyond its infancy.
To summarise
Accountants deal with businesses of all shapes and sizes and a good accountant will have experience of what works and what problems other businesses have encountered.
They can help you avoid common pitfalls that can knock you off course from your goals and help you navigate a path from start-up to growth and success.
Peter Barlow, Thomas Quinn
Thomas Quinn Chartered Accountants are an independent accountancy practice with several offices in East Anglia, acting for clients across the region, London and more widely across the UK.
Their team of highly qualified accountants are on hand, ready to provide you with financial and strategic support.
