Financial Resolutions For the New Year
Use a Virtual Accounting Department
There is a wealth of information technology available to help you run businesses more efficiently, yet most of them are underused. One of the most important information technology advances for business has been the widespread availability of fast and secure internet connections.
This means you can safely share even confidential information with partners all over the world, which in turn means companies can efficiently outsource many of their internal functions such as accounting services. A virtual accounting department allows authorized individuals full access to the company’s books from anywhere at any time. Managers can see up to date financial information at the click of a mouse rather than having to pore over paper reports that represent data from days or even weeks ago. Armed with the latest information, they can make the best decisions for their departments and their organization.
Predict Your Company’s Future
Now that you have better access to your financials through a virtual accounting department, make sure to use the wealth of information at your fingertips. Your accountants are in a position to handle the ongoing daily financial activities, but they aren’t in a position to make strategic decisions.
Every accounting period get a full set of financial reports from your virtual accounting department, but don’t just file them away. Read them. Analyze them. Understand them. Find trends within your company, your industry and the economy in general. The earlier you find problems, the more successfully you can deal with them. Locate your company’s strengths and work to take advantage of them. For example if you see a particular product line is exceptionally successful, you might increase production of that product or prioritize research into variations on the product to reach untapped markets.
Keep Better Records
Your virtual accounting department is only as good as the information they receive. If you give them garbage data, they will generate garbage reports.
Transactions should be sent in daily so they can be entered in a timely fashion. If you dump a huge pile of receipts on your bookkeepers right before – or worse, after – a quarterly tax deadline you may not get accurate tax filings and that will spell big penalties for your organization.
The quality of your data is more important than the quantity. Organize and categorize transactions before they are entered. This gives a more accurate daily picture of your company’s financial situation and will make tax filing much simpler.
Start the new year by forming a partnership with a virtual accounting department and get access to a host of financial tools to improve your business’s financial success.
