Business Accounting with Controllership Focus Online: How It Works

Setting up professional business accounting is a 5-step process. The result is a more efficient business setup that can grow as a business grows.

Step One: Identify Needs

First, CFO specialists go through a series of questions, with both the business owner and the administration staff, to pinpoint business requirements and streamlining opportunities. What are the long-term business goals? When will you consider selling your business? How do you want to grow in the future? Answers suggest the most useful setup that falls within the allotted budget.

If bookkeeping and administration staff are already in place, we will co-ordinate with them to determine how we can assist. Often, we can be a backup for holiday and sick time. Financial advice and accounting program training can also streamline staff activities.

Next, we take a thorough look at the books and how costs are tracked. Most clients can benefit from modifications to their system. Plus, the better your cost tracking, the easier it is to identify Key Performance Indicators: important pieces of information to help run your business.

As soon as needs have been identified, service is 100% custom instead of a pre-fabricated accounting solution.

Step Two: Propose a Price

Once our financial specialists have an accurate snapshot of how your business works, we will assemble a step-by-step project plan. This includes an initial streamlining of your accounting and administration systems as well as improvements to your financial costing. The resulting proposal will be based on a consistent monthly payment.

The amount will be fixed for a one-year term, provided the project scope does not change significantly. Payment is handled just like an employee: pre-authorized payments are set up as if the business owner were paying a salary. But unlike an employee, costs are always consistent with CFO: never worry about expenses like CPP, WCB, EI, and vacation pay. Read more about the ‘employee versus team’ benefits here.

Step Three: Create a New System

When a business owner approves the service contract, our technology specialists start to move accounting data to ‘the Cloud’. Cloud computing is a cutting-edge technology that lets the business owner, bookkeeper, and controller all access information from anywhere with an internet connection. All information is automatically backed up, making it safer than storing your files on-location.

This technology also includes a Microsoft SharePoint intranet called “Business Connect”: an online system that easily manages multiple projects and streamlines business processes. As new employees are gained and new departments are created, Business Connect keeps things in order and protects the collective business knowledge, helping to eliminate business ‘growing pains’.

Step Four: Train for Optimized Performance

At this point, CFO has reviewed and modified the existing bookkeeping and administrative structure. The last step is to make sure every person involved knows what needs to be done and the best way to do it.

This is accomplished with a staged implementation. We introduce a fun and easy way to learn how the new systems work. Each participant’s individual learning style is taken into account, as well as the systems being streamlined.

Our goal is to improve profitability as quickly as possible, which is done in part by compartmentalizing tasks and making sure every team member can work together. That goes for the business owner’s employees as well as CFO staff.

We make sure the right people know how to use bookkeeping and accounting systems properly so that the controller and management have access to all relevant information. That way, financial reporting is as complete as possible.

Step Five: Introduce Reports to All Relevant Parties

Our final step is to introduce Performance Reports and Executive Summaries to management. These reports include key Action items needed to help guide your business and maximize your profit.

Regular reporting helps identify trends, avoids putting critical items off, identifies important strategies, and finally acts as a testing ground for important business decisions before spending valuable dollars.

Five Steps. One Simple Solution. Looking to Get Started?

Phone or email Controllership Focus Online today. Talk to one of our specialists to see if a business accounting setup could make a real difference to your bottom line.
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