Doug Richards’ recent report on business support in the UK highlighted that there are 3,000 government agencies and most of them simply direct people to other agencies. This can lead to a never ending cycle of being passed from pillar to post and having to explain yourself over and over again. So if you want help with your business finance, where can you go?Here are the various options open to SMEs in the UK to help you decide the best route for you.1. Your Bank – the high street banks (RBS, Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds) can certainly give you advice in terms of loans, overdrafts, invoice finance and they can also give you some guidance on developing cashflows and general business advice. Usually the advice is coming from staff who are well trained internally and have seen lots of businesses from the outside but may not have had the direct operational experience of running a business.2. Your Accountant – accountants come in many guises and it’s important that you understand whether you are dealing with an auditor (responsible for verifying your accounts after the year end), a tax advisor (helping you with Tax and VAT issues) or a firm helping with your bookkeeping, management reporting and accounts. Each of these has different specialist skills and you shouldn’t assume that just because someone helps you with your tax, they’ll also be giving you overall business advice. Equally, you’ll find that many firms from the big four (PWC, Deloitte, KPMG, E&Y) , the mid tier (Grant Thornton, BDO, Baker Tilly) and the fast growing newer firms (Tenon, Vantis, Target) can give you good specific advice on business finance issues. However, make sure that you have agreed this specifically in any engagement letter. Otherwise they might think they’re just keeping your books or auditing your company and you might think they’re advising you on how well your business is performing and highlighting any potential finance issues. The gap between these expectations has caused significant problems for many companies.3. Your own FD or CFO – If you have your own finance staff then make sure you make the best use of them. It’s easy to dismiss the finance team as being too much in the detail and always taking a negative view but they are often highly experienced and well trained professionals who have a very good insight into your business. Listen to what they have to say and don’t just disregard their views because you prefer to hear all the good news that your sales director is telling you. A good FD or CFO will often have experience from other companies that they can bring to bear in your business.4. Part Time FD Companies – These have been rapidly growing in popularity for SMEs and can provide an excellent source of support and advice. They provide someone in your business on a part time basis who can guide you from their knowledge and experience in a way that’s particularly relevant to your business. When you can’t afford your own full time FD or CFO these companies (FD Solutions, Secantor, Marshall Keen, FDUK, MyFD) can all provide the support and guidance you require for your business finance in a manner that can be very beneficial for your business. Having an FD or CFO in your business, even on a part time basis can give your company a real boost and can give you a trusted advisor to turn to for advice on your company finances.5. Government Agencies – As the Richards Review highlighted it can easily end up feeling like you’re chasing your tail when you deal with these agencies and sometimes the time and effort you put in can feel wasted when you don’t get anywhere. Business Link, which provides somewhat of a hub, has a variable reputation depending on your local region. Some of the Enterprise Hubs are more supportive and operations like Finance South East have built a good reputation for clear and relevant advice.6. Corporate Finance Firms – There are many companies competing in the market to help you raise money for your company. These are businesses in their own right who are seeking to make a profit but that shouldn’t put you off. It means they are incentivised to help you succeed. Generally these firms do charge an upfront fee but most of them earn more of their fees from a back-end success component (a percentage of whatever is raised). Charges will range from £2k to £15k upfront and success fees are generally in the region of 5%, although they can go up to 20%. Beware of companies that either offer the service for free (on the basis that you generally get what you pay for) or that charge a very high upfront fee. There are also some who appear to guarantee an investment providing you pay for Due Diligence (DD). You end up paying £40k in advance and they find something in DD that prevents them investing (which they never really intended to do anyway). Make sure you understand any agreement before you enter into it.7. Your Friends and Family – In reality, this is where many people go for initial advice. Now unless your friends and family happen to fall into any of the previous 6 categories, it’s likely that their advice may be somewhat questionable. If they’ve had actual experience of the same issues and they’ve resolved it then by all means listen to them. However, you should always think about the source of your advice. Where has their knowledge and experience come from?The key lessons here are to consider where the information is coming from, whether that information is based on real world experience and training and how relevant it is to your particular business.
Support For Business Finance – Where Can You Go?
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Business Service Management – How Your Business Can Benefit From It
Businesses in most of the industries today rely on their IT infrastructure for delivery of their products or services. Despite this, business owners and IT managers face difficulty in figuring out the performance of their IT infrastructure and analyzing how that performance affects their bottom line at any given point of time. If you are wondering the same about your IT infrastructure, the answer to your queries is Business Service Management (BSM). Let’s discuss some aspects of Business Service Management and how it can benefit your business.What Business Service Management IsBSM is a way to monitor IT services so that one can understand its impact on the business’ bottom line. Through it, IT managers can monitor application performance so that they can identify, foresee and solve application bottlenecks. In case of larger organizations, the business owners and IT managers need to know which department if going to be affected the most in case of an outage, so that its impact can be minimized. Through BSM, the interests of the business can be protected by monitoring, tracking and managing the investment and operational aspects of the IT department. BSM hence ensures that IT processes are aligned with business processes for the maximum benefit of the business.How you can use Business Service Management for your businessIf your business depends on IT department for providing services or products or your customers, Business Service Management can be extremely useful to you. Even if you have a large company with a huge IT department, a BSM solution can help you undertake effective ITSM. When you have a Business Service Management solution in place, in case of a system failure, you will be able to know exactly where the error has occurred on a real-time basis. You will hence be able to analyze the financial impact of the failure as well as instruct the IT manager of steps to take to ensure that application performance is up to the mark.Some of the many benefits of a BSM solution for your business are:
It ensures application performance is up to the mark at all times
BSM also ensures the availability of business-critical applications
A BSM solution helps IT managers to ensure that service level agreement conditions are met
You can make IT service management easier with a customized BSM solution
You can understand the impact of a system failure on your bottom line through Business Service Management
A BSM solution will help you avoid downtime of applications by identifying bottlenecks and figuring out their cause
Through a BSM solution, you can reduce losses of downtime and improve productivity of your business
7 Best Bookkeeping Business Services
If you’re a small business owner considering outsourcing your bookkeeping, keep in mind that bookkeeping business services include much more than just keeping track of your finances. If you hook up with a true professional service they can become much more than an accounting service, they can become important partners helping you optimize not only your cash flow but planning your financial strategies. Here’s a short list of benefits and services you can expect from a full service bookkeeper.1. TimeActually this may be the most productive benefit of all the services an outsourced bookkeeper can provide. By taking over the responsibility of accounting, the bookkeeper service effectively gives you more time to do what you do best and that’s run the business. Accounting is an absolutely necessary part of a business but it is not a profit center and it plays no part in driving sales and revenue. Any time you devote to that function is time taken from engaging in an activity that can generate sales or profit.2. Financial forecastingUsing your firm’s financial history an experienced bookkeeping service can develop financial models that will allow you to play “what if” games that can predict your financial performance in the future. For example a business owner can ask what if sales increase 8% in the next quarter or what if the marketing budget is increased by 10% what kind of sales can be expected. This is a complex model that requires the knowledge of experts and would not be readily available to the owner unless he outsourced the function.3. Tax planningRunning your business to take advantage of opportunity to minimize tax liability can be the difference between taking a loss and making a profit. The same goes for licensing and other local fees. A knowledgeable service will not only prepare your returns but show you ways to reduce your tax bill.4. Real time reportingGone are the days of receiving monthly reports from your accounting service. In today’s business environment you need to know where you are financially right now and that’s what a professional bookkeeping service can provide. Thanks to ASP technology you can log onto your account using an ultra secure server and access all of your reports at any time and from any where you have an internet connection.5. Customized reportsYour bookkeeping service will work with you to build reports that make sense for your particular business. Profit and loss statements, sales reports, receivables reports, all can be designed so they present the information in a way that you can best evaluate your position.6. Assistance with lendersA sign of just how tough and competitive the economic times are is the expansion of bookkeeping business services into areas that they previously did not participate in. Assistance with loan applications or even introductions to lenders is an example of the “new” services being offered by many firms. Loan applications can be intimidating and confusing to many business owners and the accounting service can offer valuable assistance in insuring that the right, and best, financial information is included in the application.7. QuickBooks ConsultingEven if you don’t hire a bookkeeping service and you use QuickBooks in house to do your bookkeeping, you may find that the service can help you do it better. QuickBooks has added so many features and has become so much more than an accounting platform that it has created an entirely new support industry. If a QuickBooks customer wants optimal performance from his system, it’s likely he or she will need the advice of a certified QuickBooks consultant and the bookkeeping service is a ready, qualified resource.A combination of rapidly improving technology along with an increasingly competitive market has caused bookkeeping business services to evolve into something greater than the traditional accounting services. Smart businesses will take advantage of these services to remain competitive and optimize earnings.