For any small business owner or franchisee, maintaining timely and accurate accounts in-house is a time consuming, challenging and often frustrating exercise. Typically, bookkeeping is not the business owners’ area of expertise. Their time is better invested on other value-added activities within their business.
Franchisors typically also require a level and schedule of financial reporting that is difficult for the Franchisee to consistently deliver. This is where Smarter Accounts can add genuine and measurable value to your business.
Importantly, your data and reports are available to you 24/7. We provide you secure access to our password protected website, allowing download of prior months P&L's and Balance Sheets as well as a zipped copy of your Accounting file.
Our goal is to help you better understand your business, and our passion is to help you successfully and profitably grow it.
Primary Services
Day to Day Bookkeeping
Take the worry out of ensuring you have current, accurate accounts – and create the time to focus on generating more sales! We will take over the day to day bookkeeping requirements of your business, everything from supplier management through to payroll, petty cash and BAS – just to name a few. A detailed schedule of tasks we perform is outlined further below.
Financial Reporting
We will delivery timely, accurate and easy to understand financial statements. This includes Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and Balance Sheet reconciliations. We are also able to provide benchmarking data, so you can understand how your business is performing relative to similar businesses. More information on this is contained below.
Functional Expertise
The table below outlines our specific areas of functional expertise, and the core tasks carried out within each of these areas.
Purchase Ledger
Scan all invoices, enabling us to have an electronic copy as well as to have instant document retrieval.
Enter invoices in Accounting software.
Reconcile supplier statements, obtaining copies of missing invoices / credit notes from supplier if required, and forwarding onto store for authorisation.
Pay supplier invoices via Internet Banking in accordance with supplier terms (with the assumption that there are enough funds to make this possible). There are 2 options regarding supplier payments: -
We select which suppliers to pay.
We send the store a creditors listing and the store selects which invoices they would like paying.
E-mail suppliers remittance advice, notifying them of which invoices have been paid.
E-mail store report showing which suppliers invoices have been paid. An updated creditors listing is available upon request.
Petty Cash / Credit Card / EFTPOS receipts
Scan receipts, enabling us to have an electronic copy as well as to have instant document retrieval.
Enter receipts in Accounting software.
Reconcile Accounting software to Petty Cash balance provided by store / Credit Card statement / bank account.
Sales Ledger
Store sales information is accessed via your point of sales system and entered into our Accounting software.
Miscellaneous sales invoices created.
Debt collection for miscellaneous invoices raised.
Payroll
Payroll processed on a weekly basis (or as required) on an agreed day.
E-mail payslips to employees.
E-mail the following reports to store: - - Report showing Gross payment, Deductions, Tax paid, Net Pay and Superannuation by employee. - Report showing payslip for each employee for the week. - Payroll percentage spreadsheet which shows key labour percentages as well as other payroll KPI’s.
Superannuation returns submitted and paid monthly / quarterly (assuming sufficient funds are available).
Employee Payment Summaries (formerly Group Certificates) lodged with ATO and an electronic copy sent to the store via e-mail for distribution (hard copies also sent by post the store, if requested).
Payroll Tax returns submitted monthly / annually (if required), and paid on due date (with the assumption that there are sufficient funds to make this possible).
Annual Leave / Sick Leave accruals calculated in accordance with National Employment Standards.
Workers Compensation declaration of actual wages and estimate of wages submitted.
Centrelink Employment Declarations submitted.
Figures provided for Centrelink Employment Separation Certificates.
Child Support deductions made and payments remitted to Child Support Agency.
Bank Reconciliations / Cashflow Management
Bank reconciliations for all Bank accounts / Bank loans / Credit Cards that we have access to via internet banking or are provided hard copies for.
Banking Discrepancy reconciliation sent to store monthly, showing any discrepancies between monies expected to be deposited into the bank account versus monies actually deposited. Significant discrepancies flagged with store when discovered.
Cashflow Management, making sure that whatever funds are available are utilized in the most effective manner.
Month End Close
We undertake the following processes to ensure that we are able to provide the most accurate picture of business performance on a monthly basis: -
Annual Leave accrual journal entered so that Profit and Loss account (P&L) shows annual leave accrued, not annual leave taken.
Labour accrual journal calculated so that only Labour costs for that month appear on P&L (i.e. a 30 day month has 30 days of payroll cost on the P&L regardless of how many payroll periods there are in that month).
Stock Journal entered so the P&L shows cost of sales usage instead of cost of sales purchases, and therefore the P&L reflects a true cost of sales (where stocktake figures are provided).
Prepayments. For example insurance is charged 1 year in advance. We make sure that only 1 months worth of insurance is charged to the P&L each month rather that a whole year's worth of insurance being charged to the P&L when invoiced.
Accruals. Each P&L account is analysed to make sure that any regular monthly invoices have been received (eg Electricity). If these invoices haven't been received an estimate is made of the cost for the month in question.
Balance Sheet reconciliations. As well as each P&L account being analysed (per accruals above), we also analyse every account on the Balance Sheet and provide a monthly report detailing the closing balance of each Balance Sheet account.
Month End Reporting
The following reports are provided on completion of the month end process: -
Profit and Loss accounts showing: - - Month Actual $ and % - Month Budget $ and % - Month Variance - Month Prior Year $ and % - Year to Date (YTD) Actual $ and % - YTD Budget $ and % - YTD Variance - YTD Prior Year $ and %
Balance Sheet.
Balance Sheet reconciliations (as described above).
Cash Flow Statement for Month and YTD.
Banking Discrepancy spreadsheet (as described above).
General Ledger detail report showing all transactions for the month (available on request).
Budgeting
Work in conjunction with the store to produce an annual budget.
Business Activity Statements / Instalment Activity Statements
Business Activity Statements and Instalment Activity Statements are prepared, reconciled, submitted and paid as required, subject to cash flow. We are registered BAS Agents.
Website access / Client Portal
Access provided to our password protected website to allow you to download prior months P&L's and Balance Sheets as well as a zipped copy of your Accounting file.
Benchmarking
When we look after at least 5 stores in a franchise system, a Benchmarking exercise is conducted on a monthly basis after all P&L's have been finalised. This show: -
Percentages for all costs down to Net Profit before tax for the month and YTD for your store.
The average percentages for all stores that use our services.
A ranking for each cost category so you can see how you are performing compared to other stores.
End of Financial Year
A copy of the Accounting software data file and Balance Sheet reconciliations will be sent to your tax accountant / access provided to our secure website upon request.
Liaise with tax accountants regarding any information they require in order to complete the tax return.
Adjusting journals recorded so that the Accounting software records reflect the completed tax return.
Contact Smarter Accounts today to discuss your Bookkeeping needs and to understand how we can help you grow your business.
