Bookkeeping
Management Accounting & FD/CFO Services
Virtual Accounts Department

Bookkeeping

- Banking

- Accounts Receivable

- Maintenance of ID/CIF facility

- Monthly Debtor Reconciliation

- Credit Control Function

- Accounts Payable

- Payment Runs

Management Accounts

- Asset Register

- Prepayments

- Accruals

- Quality Checks on P/L

- Account Coding

- Balance Sheet Reconciliations

- Monthly Management Accounts

- Sales Analysis

- Inventory Reconciliations

- Annual Budgets

- Quarterly Forecasting and Flexing

- Cashflow Forecasting and Flexing

- Financial KPI’s

- Non-Financial KPI’s

- Strategy

- VAT returns

Deciding to virtually put us in your business or, if you’re an accounting firm, to outsource your bookkeeping and management accounting to us, will be one of the best and easiest business decisions you will ever make! Research from IBM revealed that;

“…27% of companies outsource to cut costs, whereas 36% are innovators and 37% are growth-seekers, using outsourcing as one of their tools to optimize their businesses.”

In fact, these are the reasons most companies outsource.

Bookkeeping is often brushed aside as an evil necessity, something to “just get done”, but ignoring this fundamental and vital part of your business’ finance function is often the cause that lights the fuse leading to the death of a business due to a financial explosion. Before we dive into the many advantages of bringing us onboard, let’s face the tough stuff first. The stats that follow are not for the faint hearted and it doesn’t make for easy reading, it’s the brutal reality of how hard it is to run a business.

Here are the biggest reasons small businesses fail, and a lack of cashflow is the cause around 80% of the time.

There is also a misconception that most companies fail in their first year, so if you make it past that milestone you’re safe. Right? No, but I wish that were true. Fact is that more businesses fail in their second year than in their first, by year 5 almost 50% of businesses would have failed and by year 10 only around 33% of businesses will be around to celebrate their 10th anniversary. The inverted pyramid below illustrates the point starkly.

Ok we hear you, enough doomie-gloom-gloom already, let’s get to the good stuff. The point of highlighting the above isn’t to try and scare you into action or therapy, quite the opposite actually. We already know where the dangers lie, so they’re easy enough to identify and address if we face them head-on. By embracing the virtual bookkeeping or virtual finance model you are putting your business miles ahead of the old school approach of your competitors where, at worst, the business owner does the work himself which means he isn’t focussed on the core business activities you are competing over, or he has hired staff to do the work which comes with the usual issues of higher cost, a bigger office, extra hardware and software, skills development costs, holiday, more taxes and sick pay etcetera etcetera.

When hiring The Advisory Firm’s finance team of the future you can look forward to the following advantages:

More Time. One of the 2 most valuable commodities in business (see inverted pyramid). Outsourcing your business’s bookkeeping operations frees up valuable time that can be put into bettering the company and spending more time on your customers or clients. Holiday much? If you’re still doing the bookkeeping, stop, unless you are running a bookkeeping business, of course!  Back-office functions can be a heavy distraction from the day-to-day running of things and having your bookkeeping in-house can lead to a conflict of interests.  All of these timewasters and distractions need to go—out of sight, out of mind.

Saving Money, up to 50% in some cases! The other most valuable commodity in business (see top reasons small businesses fail image). The bottom line is that by outsourcing your bookkeeping operations, you save money on paying full-time or part-time wages, taxes, holiday pay, sick leave/days, recruitment fees and benefits to an employee.  Further, you also save on lost productivity costs that come along with hiring employees onto the payroll.  By outsourcing your bookkeeping, you only pay for what you need—nothing more, nothing less.

Focus on Core Business Activities. Chances are you didn’t get into the bookkeeping business but into something else, so every minute you spend not focussing on that core activity is a minute your competitors either catch up to you, or heaven forbid, pass you. Focus on doing the jobs that pay you £100’s or £1000’s per hour, your time is more valuable than the cost of outsourcing to us! Run your business like you want to be one of the 33%!

Scalability Options. Growing businesses often start out with smaller needs but rapidly grow to require a full suite of bookkeeping services. Hiring our outsourced bookkeeping service with controller oversight and a full-service offering enables the service to scale to your needs, without having to hire or train additional staff. We move in lockstep with your business.

Expertise on Your Side. Would you screw in a nail or hammer in a screw? By putting your bookkeeping into the hands of highly skilled staff who understand the best practices and how to properly staff for certain tasks, your job becomes a whole lot easier—and effective. You’ll be using the best tool for the job. Generally employing this calibre of staff is expensive and prohibitive. No more!

Team versus Individual.  When you outsource your bookkeeping, you’re placing your financial records in the hands of our staff and they thrive on teamwork.  Unfortunately, one bookkeeper is often not enough to find every subtle nuance that can benefit your company.  But when you outsource to us, you have a team checking and double checking each other’s work, helping to ensure that you receive the best services possible.  This also helps keep a separation of duties i.e. HR and purchasing are as individually accountable as accounts receivable and customer services.  When you have your departments running smoothly, they form together to produce a better and more cohesive unit.

Privacy. There are few things more guarded in a business than internal financial records. This is information that an owner wants kept private and secure. Finding someone you can trust to do the job well, stay with the company long term, and maintain confidentiality is not a simple task, especially when a local bookkeeper knows your personal financial health. Outsourcing to a virtual bookkeeping service with strong client references can give an owner peace of mind by removing the opportunity to have a member of their community in contact with their financial records.

Training and Management. Most business owners are not in the position to be able to train or manage bookkeeping staff, primarily because their bookkeeper or management accountant likely knows more about it than you do. And rightly so!

Tax, Audit and Investment Ready Financials. Using outsourced professional bookkeeping services to prepare financial records makes accountants, investors and  lenders happy, in fact, this may be the only time you’ll see them smile. There is no concern over whether the books are accurate or questioning the integrity of the financial data. Whether you need to provide financial statements to the bank, satisfy investor reviews, board members or share information with HMRC, outsourced bookkeeping and management accounting services help make sure there is no doubt about the data.

Risk Management and Accuracy. Bookkeeping mistakes are common and can result in detrimental consequences. Under-claiming and over-claiming VAT are very common mistakes small UK businesses make. In these cases it can lead to HMRC investigations, penalties and potential cash flow problems. Another common issue is expenses are coded to the balance sheet rather than to the profit and loss. Profits are overstated as a result and important decisions are based on incorrect figures.

Reduced Fraud. According to an Association of Certified Fraud Examiner’s study, the most common victims of fraud are privately owned small businesses with less than 100 employees with an astounding median fraud amount of $147,000. This is due the fact that most small companies don’t have access to a controller who could look at the KPI and metrics which show abnormal activity in the transactional and billing data. Accounting controls and external audits are responsible for 26% of the cases in the study for detecting or preventing fraud.

Peace of Mind. I’ll have more of this anytime, thank you very much!

Capital Raising - Structured Finance & Debt Solutions

Capital Raising - Equity

Equity - Pre Revenue & Early Stage

‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the  ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.'

      - Mark Twain

We believe in Angels, and we think you should too. Thanks to the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS/SEIS) that helps small, private companies raise finance, the Government offers an array of tax reliefs to encourage wealthy or sophisticated investors to invest in fledgling businesses and help them grow.

In early stage ventures we tap these resources first and statistics indicate that not only is there a fair chance of funding by following this route, but that it takes far less time than the VC route as well. As luck should have it, The Advisory Firm’s reach spreads far and wide with access to most UK angel groups and investors, enabling us to save you a lot of time better spent on perfecting your code or finding early users to kick up your acquisition growth rates.

We Are Not An Accounting Firm, We Are The Accountants’ Accountant’s

Transaction Advisory & Corporate Finance

‘Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect.'

       - Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Twitter

M & A Advisory and Corporate finance is essential for shareholder value creation, value realization, business planning and corporate strategy delivery. Our team has significant transactional experience and we have an ironclad proven process we follow that yields the desired results. We are exceptionally well placed to investigate and advise on the different funding options and then subsequently raise the financial backing for acquisitions, management buy-ins (MBI), or management buy-outs (MBO) of all sizes due to our team’s active presence in the Private Equity and VC marketplace over the last three decades. We enjoy excellent relationships with most private equity partners, both in the UK and abroad.

We also secure successful business disposals for owners wishing to retire or divest a portion of their equity. This is achieved by using our knowledge of your business and the industry to prepare and market your enterprise to the most likely purchasers in the first instance.

Our consultants will also advise you on any cash flow implications, value the business and negotiate with all parties from shareholders to equity houses. We are also very active in the due diligence part of a transaction. We know where the problems and pitfalls lie in this process and will aim to identify and rectify any potential deal breakers early on in the relationship. This is often where the biggest stumbling blocks are encountered and where the most deals fall over, and yet it’s the part that’s ignored by most advisors.

Strategic Advice