Are You Leaving Money On The Table?
We are often asked how a business owner can minimize costs, and time while maximizing the potential profits from an account. This, quite frankly, should be the object for any “for-profit” business anywhere, but for each of us in the Accounting and Bookkeeping business, this can take on a special significance because literally our time equals money in our pockets. And if we can spend less time doing the same services while still maintaining the quality of the services, we need to look for such tools to add to our business.
When you go into a meeting with a client or a prospective client your object should always be: How may I turn the most profit for my company with this account? Keep in mind that you always want to strive to provide to those you do business with a value-added service that makes you invaluable to them, and as you keep their books you’ll become an invaluable ally in their achieving their business profitability goals.
While providing this essential service, however, you need to keep asking yourself, “Is there more I can do with this client?” and, “Am I leaving money on the table that could easily be captured?” In every working relationship, there is an area of profitability where on one end gives you the work, but doesn’t make you the profit, and on the other side where it makes you the profit and has little or no benefit to your client. We’ve all experienced those “work-no-profit” accounts and projects in our professional careers. Although it is fun to take on one or two of those, it’s even more fun to have the profitable ones to keep your business viable and growing on those accounts and projects that make you money.
This line of profitability questioning leads to similar types of question of how well you are doing in what you are doing. As a business owner, you have to always be measuring how well you are doing in business. Questions like, ” How well am I accomplishing my goals? How can I be doing better? How can I bring in more income with less effort?” In a nutshell, is there a better way for me to accomplish what my business is doing in more efficient, time-saving, cost-cutting methods to realize bigger profit margins? There most certainly is.
Times-Savings = Cost-Savings = Higher Profits
Universal’s program for QuickBooks Training, The Professional Bookkeeper’s Guide to QuickBooks, is what you need to work in less time and get more done. As a corporate accountant, or a freelance accounting professional, QuickBooks is the perfect vehicle to get done what you need to, for each of your accounts in a quick and efficient way. Universal’s QuickBooks Training is for you! By becoming a QuickBooks Specialist, mastering the software with our training behind you, maximizing your profits can become a reality. Its streamlined workflow helps you get what you need accomplished done more quickly and its easy-to-use desktop features will put what you need at your fingertips. Add in the hands-on practice our QuickBooks Training gives you and you are cutting hours off the time it would take you previously.
Just think about it; let’s say it is taking you to do the books of one of your accounts about 2.5 hours each week. That’s 10 hours a month at $30 an hour would equal $300 per month. As we have said before, $30 an hour is a great wage for most of us. Let’s add to this equation the QuickBooks Software, Universal’s comprehensive training and complete hands-on practicing and see what we get. Let’s be conservative and say that QuickBooks cuts your per week time on an account down to 1 hour ( in reality it could bring it down to as little as 35 to 45 minutes per account per week). So for the sake of round numbers you are doing in 4 hours what used to take you 10. Does your profitability go down as well? No! Reverse engineering your monthly billing of $300 divided by the 4 hours per month it takes you to do the books for the account and you get a whopping $75 per hour! Hey, you just gave yourself a raise!
Now, let’s grow this big. Let’s say you have 10 total clients, bringing you a total of $3000 per month. At your old way of doing things, for those 10 clients it would take you 100 hours a month to do their books, or 25 hours a week. A pretty good part-time money maker for you. Let’s take that same 10 accounts, and add in the Universal QuickBooks training and reverse engineer it once more. For $3000 per month, you are doing 10 hours of work per week instead of the 25 hours. Your new “QuickBooks Specialist” way of keeping your accounts’ books is saving you 15 hours a week that you could use any way you would like!
Let’s grow this bigger still. Let’s say you like the extra 25 hours of work per week and just want to maximize your time with your profitability. If you get out there and get 15 more clients to fill in your per week allotment, you gain an extra $7500 billable dollars per month. A grand total of $10,500 per month on a part-time basis of 25 hours per week. Just think of going full-time with this, at 35 to 40 hours a week? I know that time factors are absolute here and that this is maximum profitability, but even if you edge this down by 20% for human nature and down time who wouldn’t want to make $8400 a month part-time? There’s a lot you could do with that, couldn’t you?
Coming Full Circle
There certainly is a way you can realize the money that is on the table in your profits. By working more efficiently and effectively is the way you can accomplish that! Universal’s Professional Bookkeeper’s Guide to QuickBooks is designed to do just that. We teach you how to streamline your processes so that you can do the work more efficiently, more accurately, and more effectively than before.
Here’s a brief rundown of what you get with each session:
Sessions 1-3
The fundamentals of daily bookkeeping tasks, and gaining a better understanding of the tasks that a bookkeeper performs. You will learn the key indicators of a company’s financial health, how to calculate them, and what they mean to your company. You will learn to interpret financial data to turn it into actionable business wisdom.
Session 4-6
You will learn the must-know principles of marking down assets and how to depreciate them for the largest tax advantage in as little time as the law allows. You will learn methods of depreciating fixed assets and how to calculate allowance for bad debts. You’ll learn the benefits of each business structure and which form will legally allow you to pay the least taxes possible.
Session 7
Master the technique that will enable you to navigate the debit/credit maze and learn to use the accountant’s troubleshooting tool. You’ll be introduced to preparing financial statements and how to interpret them into practical steps to take to increase your profitability.
Session 8
You’ll be introduced to gross profit, what it is, and what it means to the financial condition of your company. You will learn how the income accounts connect into the balance sheet.
There’s no better time than now to get started on the QuickBooks Training that will be the difference in your profit margins in your work. Part-time, to full-time or even as a hobby you will be able to turn out more quickly the cost-savings you need, with less time dedicated to doing it. At the same time, widening those sweet profit margins that make you and those you provide for happy.
