Can an accountant help your start-up grow?

Starting a business from scratch will take blood, sweat and tears, right?

Absolutely. As any business owner will tell you, launching a company isn’t exactly the easy option.

But it’ll take something else, too. The support of a good accountant.

If you’re a start-up founder (or still in the planning stages) and wondering if it’s time you got an accountant, look no further. This article will tell you what you need to know.

Is my business a start-up?

How recently did you begin it? A start-up company is in the early stages of its operations.

Start-ups are generally associated with innovative, unique ideas or industry-disrupting technology, but this doesn’t have to be the case to be considered a start-up.

Anything from a niche-filling app idea to a more traditional business such as a coffee company funded by its owners could be considered start-ups.

How can an accountant help my start-up?

Using the services of an accountant can help:

Free up your time

By taking on the dullest and most time-consuming side of running a start-up, an accountant will give you the time you need to focus on your core business.

Even the most ambitious start-up entrepreneur can soon find themselves drowning in a sea of admin. We’re talking about things like bookkeeping, checking legislations, preparing reports, and preparing your end-of-year accounts. Accounting for start-ups can gift you that time back.

Save you money

Although they cost money to hire, an accountant should be able to offer value for money in the long run.

This can be through everything from cash flow management to helping you identify and take advantage of certain low-interest loans and tax relief especially for start-ups.

These include Enterprise Management Incentives (EMIs) and Social Investment Tax Relief (SITR) for non-profits. Also worth mentioning are schemes which offer incentives to investors in your business, like the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS).

Help you grow

A key part of the service provided by any good accountant is that they can help with business growth and expansion – vital for a new company.

Their knowledge and experience will help you with projections for the future and mean you avoid rookie errors like misreading market potential and even cash flow mismanagement (meaning you can’t pay suppliers on time).

Does my start-up need an accountant?

Technically not – although it’s definitely recommended if you want to get the most out of your innovative new business idea.

Not only will they take on most of the financial grunt work, but an accountant will also help with financial planning, business growth and tax-saving advice that you probably would never have known about.

What are my options?

You have broadly three options when it comes to working with a start-up accountant.

In-house

The first is to employ an in-house accountant. This is unlikely to be the best solution as most start-ups are still such young companies, they don’t have funds nor the HR resources necessary to take on internal staff.

Ad-hoc

The second option is to outsource the accounts on an ad hoc basis. That is – to pay an accountant to check your accounts are in order before submission deadlines and to provide support and help ‘as and when’.

Fixed monthly fee

You could also employ an accountant on an ongoing basis to provide the support and advice you’ll need, as well as take on the lion’s share of time-consuming tasks like bookkeeping and account preparation all year round.

This third option is probably the best when it comes to helping a start-up to grow and not fall victim to the common pitfalls which cause many start-ups to fail. If you’re a start-up founder and are looking for an extra hand with your accounting needs, get in touch today and a member of our expert team will be on hand to answer your questions.