This second article in our original series looks at how hiring an external accounting and advisory firm can help businesses throughout the work year. By hiring an experienced accounting firm like Lagerquist Accounting and Advisory, you can look forward to structured processes that optimize your organization’s financial health and growth. 

Startups and small businesses may lack the budget to hire a full-time CPA, yet a certified public accountant’s services are integral for organizational planning and success. By hiring an external accounting and advisory firm, your business can receive the necessary support with flexible and cost-effective arrangements.  

In this article, we’ll share some of the most important services an external CPA provides and how you can leverage their resources and experiences to drive optimized business decisions. 

Benefit From Specialized Financial Advice

Seasoned external specialists are well-acquainted with the latest market trends and industry challenges. As such, they have the expertise to guide your business through the most complex financial decisions. 

For example, your external CPA can help you plan, manage, and distribute employee salaries and performance bonuses based on a comprehensive understanding of market rates. Similarly, they can help reduce business costs and improve cash flow by implementing policy changes that focus on better management and controls.

Essentially, working closely with your external financial specialist paves the path toward maximized business growth through dynamic strategies. 

Assess Business Financial Health 

Your external account expert offers the fundamental process of assessing the state of your business’ finances. Such a data-supported assessment involves multiple steps best handled by an industry professional with years of experience partnering with companies from various organizational backgrounds and scenarios. 

The Financial Health Network highlights several key indicators that determine the state of a business’s finances. These include:

• Meeting financial obligations – businesses should have the cash flow to pay bills, employees, and other commitments on time and in full. 
• Maintaining a comprehensive financial system – companies should have a systematic structure in place that empowers financial decision-makers to share important business information (i.e., cash flow and profits) with external parties. 
• Planning for cash flow variability – a business should have accounting and budgeting policies that proactively calculate cash flow challenges and contingency plans to access alternative funds in emergencies. 

An outsourced accounting specialist offers the knowledge, technology, and experience to identify, manage, and fulfill each prerequisite of a healthy small business to drive the progress and growth of your company. 

Optimize Financial Records

An external accounting expert offers the latest accounting tools and expertise to help your business maintain an updated record of revenue, income, and expenses. Additionally, your outsourced expert will have the confidence and experience to create accurate cash flow projections and reduce expenditures if feasible by phasing out an unpopular service or switching vendors. 

Additionally, a reliable certified public accountant can help your company manage a positive credit score (through recommended budgeting strategies), which determines the success rates of future business loans. 

Business Debt Management

Debt management is a necessary aspect of running a business. A certified public accountant can help your company avoid financial bottlenecks that compromise organizational growth and progress. 

Additionally, external events such as the pandemic and economic downturns have led business owners to seek additional loans and lines of credit to make it through challenging times. A reliable accounting specialist provides professional advice and services to achieve accurate inventory. 

You can optimize repayments with a systematic list of debts that prioritizes payoffs according to interest rates. Also, your trusted accounting professional can help identify and avoid high-risk/predatory lending institutions (these entities usually target smaller businesses since traditional and more established lenders prefer large capital borrowers).

Lagerquist Accounting and Advisory offer analytical, creative, and strategic guidance catered to your financial processes. We help prioritize business spending to manage business debts with minimal fuss, risks, and inaccuracies. 

Budget Planning Across Various Scenarios

An outsourced accounting and advisory firm offers on-the-ground experience collaborating with clients from diverse backgrounds and will likely have the accounting strategies for responding to the varying market, economic, and industry events. 

Specifically, your trusted accountant can prepare your small business for the worst-case scenarios based on realistic targets, past trends, and observations, giving your business a competitive edge through proactive budget planning. 

On top of budget planning, Lagerquist Advisory and Accounting works to ensure that your business stays on top of bills through a complete and comprehensive accounts system. We offer clear and dedicated guidance on leading systems such as Quickbooks to optimize accounting and reporting customized to your company’s infrastructure.  

Trusted Accounting Advisory Firms Deliver Powerful Year-Round Strategies

Ultimately, the services of outsourced experts at Lagerquist Accounting and Advisory go beyond providing an annual tax claim or audit report. 

Your designated accounting advisor can guide your business toward success through consistent and transparent collaboration by optimizing current accounting systems, and ensuring that your practices stay updated with the latest industry laws and compliances while maximizing deductions and benefits. 

The next article in our original series dives into the five biggest business pitfalls and how you can avoid them by partnering with an external accounting and advisory firm. 

Contact Lagerquist Accounting and Advisory for more information on how you can maximize your financial systems with the support of experienced accounting consultants.