Growth is on every business’s radar, and as an accountant, being able to support your client’s success and expansion should be your priority. After all, it should be your success too as opposed to your Achilles heel.

The right accounting software for accountants will allow you to have a successful partnership with the businesses you work with. Providing your insights and expertise – whether from a compliance services, tax planning, or management accounts perspective – will equip your client with everything they need to succeed and grow. A goal you’ll find in every brand’s business strategy for 2023.

Having clarity on the needs of your clients, whether mid-market businesses or smaller organisations, and the service and insights they need from their accountant is hugely essential. Otherwise, your services will never fulfil your client’s needs.  This article will help you understand how accounting and finance tech differs as your clients grow, and will help you make a decision on the right finance technology for your practice and for a successful 2023.

How can finance management systems differ for small and mid-sized businesses?

An emerging small business will have basic accounting needs such as balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements which can be easily managed by the tools specifically created for this purpose.

For example, the software provided by Sage and Xero are well suited  to  small organisations and start-ups. They offer the perfect tool for accountants who look after these clients, but unfortunately, they also come with limitations where elevated needs cannot be met.

A few examples of elevated needs can include anything from:

  • Dealing with a large number of transactions
  • Consolidating data from multiple entities
  • Ensuring informative management reporting
  • International transactions management

It can be challenging to meet these needs if the accounting technology used is not specifically designed for these tasks. In some scenarios, this can lead to manual workarounds and errors, causing an array of hurdles that will soon be visible to your clients too.

For instance, if your client begins to trade in multiple geographical locations with different currencies and your finance system doesn’t allow you to transact or report in multiple currencies, your quick solution could be to turn to spreadsheets again which will dramatically reduce your efficiency over time with the elevation of possible human-made errors.

The worst-case scenario doesn’t just lie within reduced efficiency.  Imagine the gradual increase of this manual workload again, cancelling out the benefits tech has brought you up to this point. Automation will decrease again leaving you with a list of tasks that will take you an extreme amount of time, especially for your most successful and largest clients, leaving your profitability stagnant, or in certain scenarios, negative.

Pave the way with strategic financial insights

It’s critical to utilise a software in which you can be 100% confident in, both from a visibility, insights, and control point of view. Accountants, now more than ever, need to be able to support their most ambitious clients, advise accurately, and grow with them.

To ensure a successful partnership, you also need the ability to demonstrate to your client what’s possible from a growth perspective, and most importantly, showcase that you’re prepared for when they decide to embark on this new journey.

The right tech, therefore, is certainly integral to ensuring the loyalty of your clients through their growth periods. By embracing tech which is specifically crafted to help you support your clients limitlessly, you can be an invaluable strategic financial partner in every period, with the right software behind you. Allowing you, for example, to manage different currencies, and create business units in new regions and even new languages, is a level of standard accountants strive for in this competitive environment.

As their accounting partner, you’ll want to ensure that you can empower your clients based on data-led insight, so they can make more efficient business decisions and accelerate their expansion. With this reporting capability already under your wing, supporting your clients through growth has never been more efficient and simple, generating an elevated trust between you and the organisaiton.

What do future-proofing partnerships in 2023 look like for accountants?

The way to futureproof your partnerships starts by leveraging scalable technology that is specifically designed to support growth.

This approach benefits not only you but also the clients you represent. By choosing the right software solutions, accountants can enable their clients to flourish and grow, without worrying about being left behind in today’s competitive scope.

Making intelligent software decisions is crucial for empowering clients and ensuring long-term success. By adopting scalable technology, you can build strong relationships with your clients, helping them to prosper and thrive in the face of evolving market conditions. With the right tools in place, accountants can confidently navigate the challenges of the future and continue to provide valuable support to their clients.

Our specialist accounting software is a great way to ensure that your clients stay with you through growth. Carefully built with mid-market businesses at the forefront, all the above-highlighted hurdles can be resolved to allow you to take your service and advisory role to the next level.

If you’re ready to learn more, get in touch with Phil Chalmers, your specialist partner manager on phil.chalmers@xledger.co.uk.