whose clients use more "advanced" accounting

whose clients use more "advanced" accounting

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The majority of my clients I am pretty happy if they reconcile their bank/debtors/creds so I can quickly do a set of year end accounts.
However, I am interested how many accountants coach their clients to post monthly depreciation, accruals/ppts, and stock so that they can produce meaningful management info.
Or would you just try to sell them a monthly service where you do those bits for them?
The other bit many clients don't seem to be able to get their head around is posting payroll costs into the P&L from the control accts.

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Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
06th Jan 2013 18:59

Mix & match

I've always followed the principle that clients should do as much as they are able & willing to do, in that way we are left to do what the client sees as valuable and will be happy to pay for.

Having said that, I don't push it, ie why push a client to spend 30 mins a month doing a salary journal, and agreeing the control, when they could be earning money doing what they are good at, and it only takes me 5 mins?

What now makes this so much easier is online accounting.  Last year, for example, we moved 2 "spreadsheet" clients onto FreeAgent.  It would have been too much hassle to move them to something like QuickBooks, they just weren't up to it, but they have both been ducks to water with the simpler online facility and now generate monthly management accounts with minimal input from us.

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By zarathustra
07th Jan 2013 09:41

Paul That's exactly what I'm getting at. Basically provided the client gives us a TB and reconciles the bank its pretty quick to produce at set of year end accounts, so there is part of me that is happy with that as a tidy job. However, another part of me says they should be having a monthly session where they review their finances and use this to manage their business, and they can't do that without proper accounts. OK so I am not talking about solopreneurs (to use a phrase I don't really care for) but anyone with a few employees would benefit.

EDIT: the problem with not doing the wages journal each month is that clients are apt to run off their sage (or whatever) P&L and think they are making a decent profit when really they are not because the wages have not been taken into account.

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Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
07th Jan 2013 10:01

Quarterly?

zarathustra - know what you mean, the problem is convincing clients that it's worth their while looking at their finances on a regular basis and then making it as pain free as poss.

In the past few years I've only managed to get one client to review things monthly but this was a case where they were bumbling along the bottom and needed to see if liquidation was the only alternative.  If there's any complexity at all then having to deal with late invoices/bills, salary & depreciation etc can make a meaningful set on monthly accounts quite arduous to prepare (before the end of the next month).

So I've always suggested they go for a quarterly set instead, which ties in with the VAT return.  Much more manageable and more accurate then to project forward.

As far as sole person Ltd Companies are concerned and where clients can make do with spreadsheets, we found a dividend calculator spreadsheet a real bonus, not only because it established the availability of profits for dividends but it got the client to understand what was meant by profit and how they could track it as the year progressed.

So they filled in their total workdone and expenses each month and we built in lines for significant accrual adjustments (eg our fees), salary, depreciation & Corp tax.

 

 

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