Accounting is Human: From Counting Beans to Helping People
Are accountants and bookkeepers “bean counters”? Are we “number crunchers”? Everybody knows these humorous terms but terms like these understate the importance of the human-element of accounting. Our tagline is Helping People Build Strong Businesses®. We identify with this because it’s “people” that is behind all businesses; businesses themselves are nothing.
It is true that much about what we do involves numbers. What matters is what these numbers mean and what actions the organization's people can take to improve them. Everyone in the organization is ultimately responsible for driving those numbers. From marketing, human resources, product development, to sales, everyone’s role is to create value for the company’s customers which should generate profit.
You could argue that the accounting department is the only team that doesn’t drive the numbers but reports them. That’s the “bean counter” logic. Perhaps it’s time to change that mindset and look at how the accounting team actually interacts internally and externally to the organization, supporting the value proposition every other department is driving forward.
Helping Business Owners
Being a business owner can be a lonely job. Employees may think the owner is living large off the profits of the company but most companies are not as profitable as employees think. There are a lot of hidden costs (and pass-through taxes) employees do not see. Many owners in creative industries are even lonelier because the last thing their close colleagues want to talk about are numbers.
It’s the accounting & finance team that not only talks about the numbers with business owners but also serves as a sounding board for the financial pressures a business owner feels. What keeps most business owners up at night? It’s almost always cash flow and sufficient pipeline of new business. Payroll and bills don’t pay themselves. You need cash to pay them. That cash comes from customers who don't go out of their way to pay their bills.
The accounting team works to keep the inflow coming in and no more outflow going out than is needed. This helps the business owner feel like someone has their back and gives them the mental bandwidth to focus on growing their business. You know, the reason they started this thing to begin with.
Helping Employees
Although payroll is a human resource function, the processing and paying often falls under the accounting team’s area of responsibility. Payroll is something that most employees don’t think too much about. It just happens on a set frequency automatically, right?
Behind the scenes, the accounting department and managers of teams may be collaborating behind the scenes. This all needs to sync up in time for payroll cut off every time, without exception. If your expense reports are paid through payroll, there is another exercise with very specific deadlines that must take place so employees are reimbursed.
How about those commissions some employees receive that are based on when the customer pays the related invoice? Easy? Nope. Some customers have a complex compensation structure that requires the accounting team to build processes that can quickly calculate those amounts in time for a pay run.
Does payroll need to be accurate? You bet. Employees need to trust the process so they can focus on providing the value the company is paying them for. Payroll issues can cause distaste with an employee that may impact performance.
The accounting team’s goal is to ensure employees are paid on time, accurately, every pay period. Our mission is to make payroll look easier than it really is.
Helping Customers
Our favorite part of the accounting function is the sales invoicing process. Although this process can be very complex, we know timely and accurate invoices help ensure the company gets paid faster. Cash flow is king and any bottleneck in the cash receipts process can kill a business. Especially when that business is rapidly growing.
It’s imperative that the accounting team help ensure invoices out quickly. An electronic, email-based solution that can scale is paramount. Using systems that also allow the customer to pay their invoice online reduces friction in their payables process. Although shocking, many companies are still set up to pay via check.
As previously noted, a significant part of a sales team’s compensation can be commissions based on sales invoices and often the cash collections. Getting cash in the door keeps the sales team motivated and business owners stress levels at a minimum. There are few things more de-motivating for a sales person than their customer expressing frustrations to them about the lack of, or incorrect sales invoice.
As odd as it may seem, customers may fire your company over invoice issues - not even over the quality of the product or service that you sell. An accounting team knows the important role they play not only with internal stakeholders but with overall experience your company provides to its customers. When a customer is attempting to pay, there shouldn’t be anything on our end preventing them from doing so.
Helping Vendors
Vendors are sometimes looked at as “costs” but a better way to look at them as partners that support your business. Successful businesses and leaders surround themselves with quality partners. Keeping your partner's happy is a good business practice. If you have worked at a company where vendor relationships are adversarial you know that type of business culture will not be fulfilling to work in.
The accounting team plays an important role in keeping your business partners happy. From time to time it may be necessary to float a vendor’s invoice (pay it after their due date) due to cash flow issues. A responsive, friendly accounting team can help make those decisions less difficult for your vendors.
In an ideal world, vendor invoices are paid on-time. An astute accounting team will also identify if vendor terms allow for a discount by paying early, assuming cash flow allows. Vendors being paid early helps ensure they’ll continue to do business with you and perhaps prioritize your company in the delivery of their product or service. Timely payments also help keep your credit in place or possibly increased or terms extended.
In order for all of that to happen, invoices need to get into the accounting workflow timely and tee’d up in the accounts payable system. Sometimes invoices can slip through the cracks, so a good relationship with your vendor’s accounting team ensures both systems are in agreement.
Once you’re ready to pay, offer methods for your vendors to be paid timely and electronically. Larger corporations may be just fine with wires but smaller, modern businesses may be OK receiving ACH payments or through virtual cards or even by credit card (they love the points). Flexibility on how you pay may give you a vendor win they’ll appreciate.
Outsourced Accounting Helping Everyone
An accounting team usually implies internal employees working in the accounting department of a company. Many small businesses under $20M in revenue do not have enough accounting transactions to justify a full-time employee. Even if they do, it’s likely that work spans from transactional work that a bookkeeper may do all the way up to budgeting & forecasting that a Controller would normally do.
Without having to over- or under-hire for that 40 hours of work a week, you can consider partnering with an outsourced accounting & bookkeeping company. The advantage of an outsourced team is that they should be able to dial in exactly the type of accounting team member you need. Need 20 hours of a bookkeeper, 10 hours of an Accounting Manager, and 2 hours of a Controller a week? Not a problem for us. Try to hire a part-time team with those hours and keep them employed for more than a year. It’s unlikely it will work and it will cost you more time managing that situation, costing you even more. A fractional accounting team is going to be more cost-effective and more scalable than the alternatives.
Another advantage, not only for businesses outsourced accounting companies partner with, but for the employees of the outsourced accounting companies themselves is the knowledge they gain due to the increased exposure to new things across all of the customers they work with. Rather than becoming stagnant working for one company, outsourced accounting team members develop a broader knowledge base and learn faster than a typical corporate accounting worker.
Being external to an organization will be different than being an employee of a company. That’s why we focus on the People, regardless of the company our team is working with. Our core values are Curious, Caring and Capable. It’s the Caring value that translates our actions from counting beans or crunching numbers into “Helping People Build Strong Businesses®”.
This is our shorthand representing Caring within our team.
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