4 Dec 2023
Introduction
As we approach the end of another incredible year, it’s time to reflect, celebrate achievements, and set our plans for the future. At InterTax, we’re proud to work with small business owners, and whether you’re a creative entrepreneur, a passionate freelancer or a proud business owner who feels that maybe 2023 could have been better, an end-of-year review is a great way to reflect on what worked, what didn’t work, and what’s next.
In this article, we’ll share our ideas for conducting a year end review for yourself, and of course, if you need our support with the financial part, we’re here to help and ready for your call.
Celebrate your wins
Do you remember your first sale? How about the moment you hit the VAT Threshold? Every win in business deserves celebration, and the end of the year is a great way to look back on just what you achieved – even if it wasn’t planned, and even if seems like a tiny win. Celebrating your wins is a morale booster, it keeps you motivated and focused, and your wins are probably closely connected to the reason you are in business in the first place.
Learn and evolve
Ok, 2023 wasn’t a walk in the park. And just like life, running a business can be a bit of a rollercoaster. Your end of year review gives you a great opportunity to assess what worked well and what can be improved for the future. Take a look into your numbers and see where things went brilliantly as well as those areas that might benefit from a change of strategy. Your numbers tell a story, and the insights you glean from a review can have a meaningful impact on your decisions for the future.
Set goals for the future
And we’re not just talking business goals, we’re talking personal too. Your business’s success isn’t just about spreadsheets, Xero, and profits, it’s about building a business that meets your personal goals. Did you really have the year you hoped for personally? What could be better next year? Your bookkeeper can help you make sense of your numbers so you can focus on how they help you achieve your life goals.
Take control of your finances
Many business owners simply don’t review their finances, but as you’ve read this far, we’ll assume you’re not one of those people. It’s easy to bury your head in the sand when it comes to your finances, if everything’s paid on time, it can be tempting not to look any deeper, but taking some time to conduct a year-end-review is a great way to start as you mean to go on. what ever happened up until now, having a view of where you are right now, means you can take control of your finances for the future. A solid financial foundation is the backbone of your business, and we’re here to help.
Seeking support is never a sign of weakness. You do you’re thing, and we’ll do ours. Reach out to your bookkeeper as your go-to partner for all things financial, and we, for one, would love to support you in conducting your own end-of-year review, to discuss your goals, address your concerns and discuss new ways you can grow your business in 2024. Whether the calendar year end is the same as your financial year end or not, this time of year is a great time naturally to sit and take a look at exactly what’s going on behind the spreadsheet.
As we wish 2023 farewell, we’d love to raise a toast to you and your business and a new year of exciting growth.
Book a discovery call with us here and find out how we can help to kick start your 2024!
14 Nov 2023
We often hear about technology stealing jobs and making certain industries redundant. However, technology can also greatly enhance and improve your organisation, and drive your profits through the roof. By digitising your small business and using automation to streamline processes, you could see a huge increase in profitability. Here’s how to harness the power of technology and boost those margins.
1. Improve Efficiency
As your business grows, it is necessary to streamline processes in order to increase efficiency and save time. Today’s technology, such as business process management software and customer relations management solutions, allow companies to optimize their business procedures. This makes it easier to restructure and automate repetitive processes, cutting down on both man-hours and mistakes.
2. Better Customer Service
Technology allows you to provide excellent, round-the-clock customer service without breaking the bank. You can use chatbots to answer customer queries or outsource chat support, so that you can be there for your customers 24/7. You can also offer your customers omni-channel support which syncs all communication channels together, creating a seamless and more efficient experience.
3. Remote Working
Technology not only allows you to improve your business, but to save money whilst doing so. One significant way to do this is by offering remote working. Research by Forbes found that staff who work remotely save their employers an average of $22,000 per year. On top of this, a study by Stanford found that remote employees are 13% more productive, take fewer sick days and report higher job satisfaction. Therefore, employing technology to encourage remote working can help you get more out of your staff whilst saving significant money.
4. Reduce Costs
Technology also offers small businesses many money-saving benefits beyond remote working. For example, switching your landline to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which works via your internet connection, can save you significant money over time, as well as encouraging more efficient communication.
You can also use automation to fulfil menial tasks to save man hours and free up staff time to focus on high priority, profit-generating duties. You can automate many different office tasks, including:
- Filtering applicants when hiring
5. Improve productivity
Productivity is directly related to profitability. As discussed, technology can make employees more productive by facilitating remote working. However, there are many other ways you can harness the power of technology to increase productivity. For example, technology can allow you to gamify your office, which helps to motivate employees. You can also use gamification to increase participation and engagement rates in online training and courses.
You can also use collaborative software and tools to encourage organisation and consistency amongst your workforce. This is particularly valuable when employees are working remotely, as it ensures that everyone is on the same page and feels valued and involved.
6. Smarter Marketing
Technology can really enhance your marketing and help you to get more out of your budget. It can help to create personalised marketing campaigns and allow you to split-test your marketing materials to fine-tune your strategy and find out what works best for your business. It’s also possible to use artificial intelligence to gather data on your target audience and thus create more accurate marketing campaigns that speak directly to them.
Summary
Technology can enable you to build a faster, better and more profitable business, driving your costs down whilst increasing output. On top of this, technology can help you increase sales by helping you create more targeted and impactful marketing campaigns. If you’re serious about driving up your profits, it’s time to take advantage of all that modern technology has to offer.
If you’d like to speak to us about how we can support you with your accounting needs, book a free consultation here.
6 Nov 2023
In recent years we saw the most significant leap in business digitalisation. Companies can resolve disruption paralysis with such a move by implementing correct planning strategies.
It’s no doubt that the modern world is rapidly moving towards digital products and services, with only niche markets being able to profit with traditional operating methods.
When companies attempt to implement new technologies in their workflow, they can get stuck in a state of disruption paralysis. In the face of potentially overwhelming changes, an owner who has yet to be properly acquainted with new workflow tools may not be able to move forward.
Resolving disruption paralysis is a steppingstone for any company looking to implement new technology in its daily operations. While long-term solutions are best, even a short-term resolution can show a way forward and set the company on a clear goal to follow.
Tip 1. Acknowledge the Trial-and-Error Approach
Implementing new models into your existing pipeline might be vital to a company’s existence on the market, provided that they line up with the company’s mission statement.
In this regard, businesses must realise that aggressive testing is the only way to ensure they can survive the onslaught of digitalised offers and competitors. Setting up a testing area, where only a part of the pipeline uses the innovation, can help keep errors to a minimum.
Tip 2. Bring in Thinkers!
Traditional businesses will often get the most benefit by hiring new employees with the expertise and experience in emerging technology that’s needed to make the correct choice. Employing this new blood to spearhead the transition to a digitised environment will align their goals with the company’s mission statement, allowing both to evolve with technology.
It’s hard to let go of past experiences, practices, and thinking, so relying on a future generation moulded in modern technology could reinvigorate productivity and inventiveness. They also don’t require as much training to use new methods and interfaces.
Tip 3. Adjust Goals
Companies rarely come away unscathed from a significant rebuilding effort, such as implementing new technologies in their workflow. Adjusting the mission statement to match current trends might be necessary to allow for more freedom in making bolder claims, products, or services for the time to come.
However, the business vision, or the primary goal behind its origin, must not waver with the introduction of emerging technologies. If the vision is not congruous with modernisation, consider adopting different goals to appeal to a niche market and remain profitable in another way.
Tip 4. Allocate Budget
With the threat of disruption paralysis, putting too many resources (monetary and human) into implementing technologies can lead to devastating results if failure ensues. Taking a step back to properly budget for these changes can be vital in keeping the business afloat during the transition.
Companies can’t afford to be conservative with their capital. Not investing enough to improve and compete in a digitised market can be in vain. Worse, it can drive consumers to a bolder competitor.
Moving With the Tides
In a digitised world, refusing to implement new technologies might backfire spectacularly.
An aggressive and decisive approach to improving current workflow will involve several testing phases and an injection of new people more familiar with the technology.
These investments can pay off in the long run, ensuring the business survives with its vision intact and a mission that reflects society’s current trends.
If you’d like to speak to us about how we can support you with your accounting needs, book a free consultation here.
1 Nov 2023
Introduction
Are you using artificial intelligence? As we see artificial intelligence (AI) more and more in daily life, we’re also hearing debates and speculations about its potential to replace traditional professions, including bookkeepers and accountants. While AI is indeed transforming the finance industry, the question remains: will it do finance professionals (like me!) out of a job? In this blog post, I’ll discuss the impact of AI on accounting, discuss the ways in which AI can help bookkeepers and accountants, and give you my view of the future of these professions.
AI for bookkeepers and accountants
AI is hot on the agenda at every accounting event right now. We’re seeing changes behind the scenes with the software we use, with numerous tasks being automated and much better real-time insights into financial data. Here are some ways AI is reshaping the accounting profession:
Data entry
The biggest change right now is the potential for AI-driven software to simplify data entry by automating processes, reducing, or even removing the need for manual data input. This saves time for bookkeepers like me and minimises the risk of human error.
Improved accuracy
AI tools can identify discrepancies and inconsistencies and spot patterns in data – including financial data. AI has the potential to maintain and even improve levels of accuracy, giving us even better insight into your numbers and more opportunity to talk about what matters to you – reaching your goals, and the power of your numbers to allow you to do that, which leads us to…
Real-time insights
When we spend less time fussing with accuracy because AI is doing that for us, we can quickly get stuck into the insights you need into your company’s financial health. This allows you to make informed decisions promptly.
Time efficiency
Automation of routine tasks frees up time for accountants and bookkeepers to focus on more complex financial analysis, scenario and strategic planning.
So, will it replace us?
You’ll notice that the role of AI as we see it is focused on speeding up and improving the accuracy of what a bookkeeper or accountant would traditionally spend the majority of their time doing. And this is important to remember. I see AI as a valuable assistant, not a replacement. While AI is a transformative force in accounting, it is not poised to replace bookkeepers and accountants. Here’s why:
Human judgment
Accounting and bookkeeping often involves subjective decisions and judgment calls that AI simply cannot make. Human professionals will always be important for interpreting financial data, understanding the context within the specific business, and having real conversations with you, the business owner.
Relationships
At InterTax, earning your trust through real communication and relationships matters to us. When it comes to finances, you need somebody on your team to run queries past, and AI can’t replicate that. Data is data, but we’re here to address your concerns, know your goals and help you reach for them.
Adaptability
As humans, we can adapt quickly to unpredictable scenarios… if you remember everything the country went through during 2020, you’ll remember just how quickly we were able to interpret, respond to and implement every update from the Chancellor. AI may struggle to adapt to rapidly changing financial landscapes and handle unique, complex situations.
Security and ethical considerations
And this is the big one for me.
As a professional bookkeeper, ensuring compliance with financial regulations, security of data, and maintaining ethical standards is crucial. We would never put your data at risk and we’re keeping a constant view of developments of the software we’re using and how they incorporate AI.
AI-based accounting software, when properly developed and implemented, can be highly secure. These accounting software’s often use encryption and other security measures to protect financial data. However, the level of security can vary depending on the software provider and the software configuration. We see this as a risk, and for this reason, only work with reputable software providers.
This topic is high on the agenda of every accounting and bookkeeping event, it’s an area that is moving fast and which we’re watching closely.
Conclusion
While AI is reshaping the accounting profession by enabling software to automate some tasks and provide better insights into patterns and inaccuracies, AI is not poised to replace bookkeepers and accountants. AI should instead be seen as an assistant that will enhance services in the future allowing us to give you better data and insights, but the vital human touch is still crucial.
The future of accounting and bookkeeping is certainly a relationship between human expertise and AI innovation, bringing the best of both worlds, but you can rest assured, that I’ll always be here.
If you’d like to speak to us about how we can support you with your accounting and bookkeeping needs, book a free consultation here.
5 Oct 2023
As a small business owner, you may be used to taking the DIY approach. After all, you’re most likely a marketer, financial director, HR manager and payroll administrator, to name but a few of your many responsibilities. However, although your business may be small, there’s one area that really does call for professional help – and that’s filing your tax return. Let’s take a look at four of the main reasons you shouldn’t do your taxes yourself this season.
1. You’re Not a Numbers Person
We’d all like to believe that we’re good at absolutely everything, but the truth is that not everyone is good with numbers. If you don’t have an affinity for mathematics then doing your taxes yourself is probably not the best idea.
Even if you’re competent enough at everyday calculations, taxes are a whole different ball game. Calculating your taxes is a very complex process; there’s a reason that chartered accountants have to spend so many years in training.
A simple mistake on your tax return can cause you to pay the wrong amount of tax and even result in harsh penalties that can seriously threaten your small business. It really isn’t worth the risk.
2. It’s a Waste of Your Time
Taxes are notoriously time-consuming and as a busy business owner, your time is a precious resource that you can ill-afford to waste. After all, the time that you spend doing your taxes is time you can’t spend growing your business. It’s important to sit down and think about how much your time is actually worth before you squander it all trying to figure out your taxes. Think of time in the same way as you think of money, and learn to invest it wisely.
3. Tax Laws Change Constantly
Tax laws change all the time and it can be incredibly difficult to stay on top of all the latest rules and regulations – especially when you already have a business to run. When tax season rolls around, the chances are you won’t know about all of the latest changes which could lead to you making mistakes on your tax return or missing out on new opportunities to save money.
It’s an accountant’s job to keep up to date on any changes and then take advantage of these opportunities to save you money, so that you pocket as much of your income as possible. Remember that a quality accountant will always save you more than their wages.
4. The Internet is Full of Misinformation
In this day and age, the DIY approach to any task usually involves several Google searches. The problem is that although the internet is a wonderful resource, it’s full of incorrect or outdated information. As discussed, tax laws and deductions change all the time, so the article you’re reading may no longer be accurate. Furthermore, tax rules vary hugely from country to country, so you might end up making a mistake because you read advice that doesn’t apply to your business.
Sifting through all of this information and checking for veracity is a hugely time-consuming task, so you’re far better off working with a tax professional who has relevant experience within your specific industry. That way, you can have your questions immediately answered by someone who knows what they’re talking about and won’t have to waste time falling down Google rabbit holes.
Summary
The needs of every business are different, but if the above issues resonate with you then you should consider hiring an accountant when tax season rolls around. A great accountant is an investment in the financial health of your business, and will undoubtedly save you a significant amount of time, money and stress in the long run.
