Small businesses are the backbone of the economy, accounting for 99.9% of all businesses in the United States. As a small business owner, you have a lot on your plate – managing inventory and sales, dealing with employees, staying on top of accounting and finance. Having an accountant who understands your business needs is crucial to your success.  

But how can you ensure your accountant really adds value? Too often, accountants focus solely on compliance like taxes and financial reporting. While important, this gives small business owners little strategic help in actually growing their business. 

The best accountants act as advisors, providing real-time financial insights and cost savings, making connections, reviewing contracts, improving technology, and advising on strategy. They help set up financial processes that improve efficiency and profitability.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore 7 ways accountants can move beyond compliance and demonstrate true value to small business owners. With the right accountant by your side, you’ll gain the strategic support you need to allow your business to thrive.

1. Provide Real-Time Financial Insights 

As a small business owner, you may feel like you’re flying blind without clarity into the financial health of your business. An accountant can provide regular reporting and insights into the real-time state of your finances. This includes:

– Cash flow statements showing cash coming in vs. going out monthly. This helps you identify potential cash crunches before they become critical.

– Revenue reporting by product line, sales channel, geographical market, etc. You’ll gain visibility into what’s driving growth and what’s lagging. 

– Expense reporting by type – salaries, rent, supplies, etc. You can benchmark expenses and look for wasteful spending.

– Profit and loss visibility showing real-time profitability rather than waiting until tax time. You can course correct quickly.

– Balance sheet, showing assets and liabilities. Is your business overleveraged? Underleveraged?

– Budget vs. actual reporting. How do your real revenues, expenses, and profits compare to budgets?

– Key performance indicators tailored to your business, such as sales per employee, cost per unit produced, etc.

With real-time reporting, you’ll spot problems like falling revenues or margins long before year-end. Your accountant can help you diagnose issues and opportunity areas so you can course correct quickly.

2. Look for Cost Savings

A good accountant does far more than prepare your taxes. They should actively look for cost savings in your daily operations and on your tax bill.

Your accountant can advise you on which business structures and elections make the most sense for tax purposes. For example, would an S-Corp or LLC provide more savings? Are you taking advantage of all available business tax credits?

On the operations side, your accountant should dig into the details of your expenses to find wasteful or unnecessary spending. This may involve analyzing utility bills, software/app subscriptions, daily supplies and materials, inventory practices, payroll, rent, etc. They can benchmark your expenses against other businesses to identify outliers.

An accountant can also advise you on processes for negotiating better deals with vendors and suppliers. They can ensure you have ideal payment terms and structures set up.

By thoroughly analyzing variable and fixed costs, your accountant can model the impact of different growth and cost-cutting scenarios. This allows you to pursue cost optimization intelligently.

3. Make Valuable Introductions

Your accountant should leverage their network to connect you to other professionals and resources that can help grow your business.

For example, they can make warm introductions to:

– Lawyers to assist with contracts, IP, incorporation, etc.

– Bankers to potentially provide financing.

– Financial advisors for personal wealth management.

– Other accountants specializing in niche areas of accounting.

– Payroll and HR providers.

– Benefits brokers to secure ideal health insurance rates.

– Marketing, PR, and advertising professionals to build brand awareness.

– Sales consultants to improve processes.

– Peers in your industry that may want to collaborate.

– Potential strategic partners.

– Qualified staff for open positions.

– Educational programs and resources.

– Networking events and trade associations.

Your accountant likely has many connections, so use them! Getting a warm introduction from a trusted advisor goes a lot further than cold outreach. This can open doors and propel your business growth.

4. Review Key Agreements and Contracts

Your accountant should not just report on historical finances – they should help improve your business going forward. 

One key way they can do this is by reviewing significant agreements and contracts for potential issues or savings opportunities. Given their financial expertise, they may identify areas you’ve overlooked.

Examples your accountant should review include:

– Lease or mortgage contracts – can more favorable terms be negotiated?

– Key vendor and supplier agreements – are the terms and pricing competitive?

– Business partnership agreements – is ownership stake fair? Are financial terms clear?

– Business loans and lines of credit – can better rates or terms be found?

– Insurance policies – are there potential savings on premiums?

– Employee agreements – do they include non-compete clauses and IP protection?

– Stock option plans – are they structured properly?

– Customer contracts – are payment terms favorable? Can you charge additional fees?

– Shipping and fulfillment contracts – are fees competitive? Is scope clear?

Having another set of eyes review these key business agreements can prevent major headaches down the road. Your accountant may spot areas of risk or potential savings you’ve missed.

5. Suggest Technology Improvements

Your accountant should understand how technology can improve a small business’ efficiency across accounting, inventory, payroll, payments, and more.

They can provide an unbiased assessment of your current systems and tools. Where are there gaps? What features are you missing out on?

Your accountant may suggest:

– Accounting or bookkeeping software like Quickbooks Online, Xero, or Sage to automate processes.

– Payroll, time tracking, and HR platforms like Gusto or Rippling to modernize payroll.

– POS systems like Square or Shopify POS for seamless omnichannel retail sales.

– Ecommerce platforms like Shopify or Wix to effectively sell online. 

– CRM platforms like Salesforce or Zoho to centralize customer data.

– Inventory management software to optimize purchasing and control stock levels.

– Expense reporting software like Expensify to simplify expense tracking.

– Payment systems to get paid faster with less hassle.

– Document management tools for organized record keeping.

The right technology can automate administrative tasks, reducing headaches for you and your staff. This frees up time for high-value strategic work. As an unbiased advisor, your accountant can suggest upgrades that make sense for your business.

6. Provide Advisory and Strategic Planning

While most accountants focus narrowly on compliance, the best accountants act as true trusted advisors and strategic thought partners.

An engaged accountant will take the time to truly understand your business goals, challenges, and unique needs. They’ll dig into the finer details of your operations, business model, and industry dynamics. 

Armed with this knowledge, they can then provide tailored, big picture advice to help plan and run your business more effectively.

Ways they can advise include:

– Strategic business planning – guidance on new locations, expansions, pivots in direction, etc. 

– Budgeting and forecasting – collaborating on financial plans and growth models.

– Providing industry benchmarks – how do your KPIs stack up?

– Target setting – are your growth goals realistic?

– Hiring plans – modeling personnel needs and costs.

– Marketing guidance based on profitability by segment. 

– Capital planning – weighing financing options, ROI on investments and equipment. 

– Scalability advice and avoiding growing pains.

– Competitive landscape – how can you differentiate and stand out?

– Exploring strategic partnerships – who could you align with?

While you know your business best, an outside perspective from a numbers-focused advisor can be invaluable. Leaning on their expertise can give you the confidence boost needed to grow boldly and strategically.

7. Handle Time Consuming Administration

As a business owner or executive, your time is best spent on high-level strategic tasks – developing new offerings, pitching clients, modeling growth opportunities, etc.

Unfortunately, administrative tasks eat up more time than we’d like. Your accountant can take over many of these responsibilities, freeing you up for more valuable work.

Administrative and operational areas your accountant can handle include:

– Accounts payable and accounts receivable.

– Payroll processing and remittance.  

– Organizing and managing receipts and documents.

– Preparing bank reconciliations.

– Managing inventory and ordering. 

– Maintaining a general ledger.

– Issuing invoices to clients.

– Grant and incentive reporting.

– Managing software platforms and access.  

– Benefits administration.

– Licenses and regulatory filings.

– Managing audits.

Think carefully about where your time is going. What tasks could easily be delegated to a qualified accountant? This will lower administrative burdens substantially.

Conclusion

Choosing the right accountant is one of the most important decisions you’ll make as a small business owner. Look beyond just tax prep and reporting. The best accountants become true strategic partners in your business growth.

By making real-time financial insights easy to digest, identifying cost savings, making connections, optimizing agreements, implementing helpful technology, providing advisory, and taking over administrative tasks, your accountant can become a core member of your team.  

So be selective in choosing an accountant. And don’t be shy in asking for their guidance to help set your business up for lasting success. With the right accountant guiding you, the sky is the limit.