Whether you want to leave it to a relative or sell it at the highest dollar, you have an idea of the end game for your small business – at least somewhat.
When you’re looking into partnering with a year-round accounting service, you know that you might not see value today, but an accountant can help you add value to your business and retire one day.
At CSI Accounting & Payroll, we’ve worked with small businesses for over 50 years. Throughout that time, we’ve had many clients reach the point when they can enjoy their retirement. However, before getting to that point, they’ve asked us:
- How can a monthly accountant save me money?
- When and how does a monthly accountant increase the value of my business?
- How can an accountant help me sell or pass down my business?
How a Monthly Accountant Can Save You Money
When we talk about how a monthly accountant saves you money, we’re mostly referring to two things: using a complete tax strategy to minimize your tax liability and using monthly financials to uniquely advise your business decisions throughout the year to find your best path to profitability.
Minimized Tax Liability
A monthly accountant is different from an annual accountant because they use tax strategy throughout the year instead of just filing your taxes. This helps you owe as little as legally possible. Learn more about complete tax strategy here.
Year-Round Informed Decisions
Monthly accountants also produce monthly financial statements for you to see exactly how you’re doing throughout the year. This allows you to make the best business decisions because they’re based on current data.
They don’t just give you the information and leave you to sit with it, either. Monthly accountants meet with you every month to go over how you’re doing and how you can improve your operation.
Plus, you can call, email, or text them as much as you want when you have one-off questions – at no extra charge. If you have a larger project, you can add on a consulting project for an additional fee. See the difference between one-off advice and consulting here.
When and How a Monthly Accountant Increases the Value of a Business
It’s one thing for an accountant to save you money, but it’s an entirely different thing for them to increase the value of your business. So, how can they do that? By using sound accounting practices.
Just by having your financials complete and accurate, your business is already more appealing to buyers and lenders. This is especially true if they’re prepared by a third party – such as a monthly accountant.
Buyers will be willing to pay more if they feel they’re taking on less risk, and banks will feel more comfortable lending buyers the money to buy your business if they feel it’s a sound investment with good records.
How long will that take? Most banks will want to see about three years of solid records, but the value a monthly accountant can offer goes beyond that. A year with a monthly accounting service will at least get you through onboarding and a tax season, but you don’t have to wait that long to start seeing value!
When you come on board, you may already have a lot of things you want to know. You’ll get as many questions as possible tackled right away. After the discovery period is over (about one month), expect tangible items to start arriving around the 45-60 day mark.
Really, the only thing you’ll wait longer for is the tax-saving results of a complete tax strategy – seen during tax season.
How an Accountant Helps Sell or Transfer a Business
When you’re ready to move on, do you want to transfer your business to a family member or sell it for a profit?
Transferring Your Business
There are tons of transfer methods for passing down a business, but here are some of the basics that an accountant can help you with or refer you to an expert for:
- Sale method
- Gift method
- Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) method
- Trust method
Selling Your Business
If you’re looking to sell your business, that’s an area where a monthly accountant’s consulting skills come in handy. Since they work with your books year-round, they can offer a special value to the selling process.
Beyond increasing the asking price of your business by giving you good financials (as discussed above), they can help you by constructing the sale agreement and even potentially continuing the relationship with your buyer to ensure your business’s long-term success.
They can work with the broker to help determine:
- The sale price
- The length of the agreement
- What kind of payment or financing will be involved
- Whether it will be a stock sale or an asset sale
Plan Your Business’s Ideal Future With Monthly Accounting
Now that you know about how a monthly accountant can save you money, raise the value of your business, and help pass down or sell your business, are you ready to check out monthly accounting services?
If so, please consider CSI Accounting & Payroll! To see if we can be a good fit for your business, click the button below for a free consultation:
Not ready to talk? That’s okay! First, learn more about the cost of monthly accounting by clicking the image below:
