Would You Like to Work with an Accountant Who Is Also an Advisor?

You may have read countless articles in regard to the factors that contribute to the success of a business. Regardless of whether you are considering to start-up a new business or take over/expand an already established one, the top-ranking elements of success are the same: passion, determination and hard work! It is true that being passionate about what you are doing, being determined to do what you think is right and your hard work to which you dedicate your time generously will eventually be rewarded. But always keep in mind that your efforts alone may not always be enough to get the response you are expecting. When successful people are asked for recommendations for success, they list all the features mentioned above alongside with another feature, which they often refer to as “the most important one”: a powerful team.

Although in the first instance the referred “team” feature sounds like a stereotypical word used just to win the surrounding people’s hearts, it is in fact the reality indeed.

Today we, business people, are very well aware of the fact that working with professionals will not only save us time to focus on developing our business, but also prevent us and our entities from being harmed. Therefore, we have to have people around us to address our questions freely or be warned by if anything seems to be going wrong. We need trusted advisors.

“Advisory” has become a need in recent years as competition gets more and more intense and working around the clock becomes just not enough. Try to picture yourself in a routine working day; as a person at the managerial level you make hundreds of decisions every day, and some of them play quite crucial roles in your company’s future. If you want your decisions to be fair, accurate and consistent, you should have the full confidence that you are provided with all the necessary information. To achieve this, you need to team up with the right parties, within or outside your company.

Accounting & Finance is one of the most crucial functions of a company as it directly impacts financial decisions. Financial figures (provided in financial statements or management reports) bear all the financial details of a company that help the management team evaluating the company’s financial position and allocating scarce resources accordingly. The decisions are solely based on figures. Thus, accuracy and reliability of the figures are highly important. Besides ensuring the proper execution of the decision-making process, accuracy is also important from the perspective of responsibility to the tax and regulatory authority. We are living in a digital world and compared to the past it is much easier for the authorities, who are much more aggressive to ensure that the guidelines are applied completely, to spot a discrepancy or inconsistency in data declared by companies. Even a single detail which is overlooked today may bring along unexpected liabilities for C-suites in the future.

Taking all these into account, the reliability of financial data may be considered questionable as accounting departments’ style of work is usually referred to as “under the radar”. Therefore, companies hire external advisors to review their financial data and to get assurance, or they go one level deeper by hiring fraud examiners if they suspect that something in their accounting system is not quite right.

Today many companies prefer to outsource their accounting function to obtain the point of view of an independent party. This way, decision makers ensure that their company’s transactions are assessed and tracked by an independent body. Raising queries no longer becomes a burden since this function is now separated from the company.

At this point I will ask you to take a moment and think about your own business context. If you have stopped reading this article and started questioning the accountability of your company’s accounting function, regardless of whether you are an owner or a decision maker within the management team, I invite you to respond to the questions below.

• When you address a question, how long does it take for you to get a response?
• Are you informed accurately about the possible consequences of a decision you are about to take?
• Is the answer to your question or query well supported with relevant examples/rulings/decisions or what you would like to hear?
• Does your accounting and finance function see any harm in commenting out of the scope of their area of expertise?

Apparently “Good Accounting” is not only classifying transactions as “debit and credit” and recording in the right place. Good accounting requires understanding the substance of transactions beyond the numbers, comprehending and following up the regulations fully and maintaining the accuracy, reliability and accountability of the financial figures.

As a management team member in your company, you need to focus on maintaining your responsibilities for key business functions rather than trying to handle these tasks all by yourself. The importance of the reliable accounting and reporting support becomes more obvious right here; you should have the luxury of counting on the data and information you are supplied with to make the calls that would carry your business to higher levels.

Yes, the pressure is in the air; but you have to have your “thinking time” to run things smart. You need good partners and that’s exactly who we are and what we do for you.