Entrepreneurs are rarely geared towards minutiae
by Jane Aylwin, Founder of Added Perspective
Finance, such a far-reaching term that fills some with dread - and others with glee, let’s face it. In the business world, you either need a good head for figures or you need the very strong, stable, loyal, trustworthy and understanding support of someone else with a good head for figures and the strength to keep you focused on them. 
That’s a lot to ask and it can take years (and a lot of pain) to find the right person, if you are not that way inclined yourself…
The entrepreneur is rarely geared around minutiae – We’re risk takers, big picture people - and are always looking for the next opportunity.
Often driven by emotions such as thrill, joy, desire and satisfaction, finance at its basic level is rarely at the forefront of the entrepreneur’s mind and, while most entrepreneurs have an incredible ability to interpret high-level numbers - and to do it fast - attention to detail, on the micro-scale required to be effective in financial management, is a cause of frustration and boredom for many CEO’s.
Jane Aylwin, Added Perspective
So, what’s the problem?
The biggest problem faced by CEO’s is the time it takes to get the information required to make decisions - There are times in business when, either an opportunity presents itself that you need finance to pursue, or when business takes an unexpected twist that you need finance to survive. These decisions need to be taken FAST.
Humans, as a species, are emotionally driven; we always have been. Now, we are emotionally driven, visually stimulated beings and we live in a purpose focused world.
Entrepreneurs are taking that a step further, bringing those qualities to business, living at a pace that no-one has ever tried to sustain before, working hours that our ancestors – our very recent ancestors - would never have dreamed of, and coping with stimuli that the average human brain has not quite sufficiently evolved to deal with - yet.
We have developed methods of communication that mean we can hold a meeting anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice, convey our thoughts and instructions, at the press of a button, to 100’s or 1,000’s of people simultaneously; we can work from pretty much anywhere on the planet and access data on any subject, at any time, in any place with a few taps of a keypad (or just by asking your favourite AI interface of course…)
However, accounting information remains frustratingly elusive, archaically presented and is apparently NEVER up to date when we need it.
The frustration is that business has changed, the pace the world works at now is incomparable to even just 25 years ago, but accounting methods haven’t progressed, and neither, on the surface, has the way in which we access finance.
The 21st century has spawned a new breed of business and a new breed of business owner. The digital age has sparked the same level of transformational change as the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution and the transport revolution.
Welcome to the accounting revolution
(Yes, you read that right!)
On accountants…
There has been a significant lag between the change in need from the business to the change in provision from the advisor and this has caused frustration, a break in trust and a frightening number of businesses turning to a solution that met demand much more proactively, much earlier than most advisors did.
On software…
Hats off to these guys’ massive innovation, a complete revolutionary reaction to the demands of modern business owners, desperate for a modern solution to their modern problems. We saw the market flooded by brand new players, providing brand new answers to age-old problems. Real-time, automated processing systems that adapted to the environment at a rate that left many traditional accounting firms dazed and confused in their wake.
On bookkeepers…
A new generation of professional bookkeepers has hit the ground running, generally smaller, nimbler and a much closer match to the needs of clients than traditional accounting practices. They also possess a talent for getting to grips with new software, utilising different accounting systems, applying skills to multiple platforms AND meeting the daily demands and needs of clients… Bookkeepers were much better placed to ride the initial wave.
So, what does this mean for businesses in the digital age?
It means that businesses have access to Joined-Up-Numbers, the potential to create an uber-efficient accounting process that utilises the best of the software platforms, automation and hands on business advisory support on a day-to-day basis from professional bookkeepers and accountants (the ones who make it through). They meet compliance standards without fuss, as well as adding value in areas where it has been so poorly provided in the past, due to the constraints of available data and the insistence of sticking to traditional, outdated methods.
There is finally a suite of resources at the disposal of the savvy business owner that solves all the problems, ticks all the boxes and provides solutions to age old issues such as efficiency, relevance, flexibility and, most importantly, delivers real-time information.
There has always been a BIG ISSUE with the collation and preparation of quality information. As frustrated as you have always been with the never-ending questions, the constant demand for missing information, the detail that you can’t provide and the delay in receiving information that you so desperately need to make decisions, your accounts team and advisors have been at least as frustrated as you are. It has basically been a huge nightmare for everyone concerned, for a very long time…
And here’s the hack
(- and yes, it’s very basic)
What you need is a robust system, which everyone (you included) follows religiously. You need a way of collecting information that fits with your business, your life and your team and you need to automate the process as much as is physically possible. You also need to allow it to be supervised and managed by people who have the time and the skill sets needed to ensure that you maintain QUALITY DATA.
And here’s a little secret…
Quality data leads to quality information, which leads to quality analysis, which leads to better advice, which leads to better decisions which leads to better businesses, which leads to better lives, which leads to a better world. (Steve Pipe – awesome accountant and amazing man)
And here’s another little secret…
You are not the right person to oversee this.
A mistake that I have seen all too often is business owners trying to manage their own accounting processes…
When you are a start-up I get the need to try and outlay as little as possible. However, that is a false economy, it is always a false economy to manage processes in your business that you are not good at, do not fully understand, don’t really see the point in and, most importantly of all, have absolutely no interest in (because when you do this yourself you will not see the value in your numbers or the power in your data, because you won’t get any value and there won’t be any power. Fact.)
It is a mistake I made (and I’m an accounting professional… You know that saying about the plumber with the leaky tap, the electrician with the blown light bulbs...) and it is probably a mistake you are either making, or have already made.
YOU WILL NOT INNOVATE IN THIS AREA BECAUSE IT IS NOT WHAT YOU DO BEST.
It doesn’t fire you up, you don’t feel passionate about it and the more you try and do this yourself, the more disengaged you will become.
Spending your evenings and weekends on your accounts is a sure-fire way to begin to hate your financial data. And once you start down that slippery slope it’s a hard slog back.
There’s power there, there’s massive value and you will not find it, doing it yourself.
But it’s so boring!
Yes, it is, when you have a business to run, a team to manage, customers to service, strategic decisions to make and, somewhere in amongst all that, somehow, a life to live.
Managing data, accounting data almost definitely bores you and it is very definitely a MASSIVE WASTE OF YOUR TIME… So, stop it, follow the process, ensure everyone else knows what it is and follows it too - religiously - and let someone with the right skills and knowledge run the system for you.
“It doesn’t even make sense!” you cry
Yes, it does, when you have someone managing it who knows what they are doing.
And not only does it make sense, it is done properly first time around, it is done well and it is done with absolutely no input from you (except of course that you follow the process). It makes sense, it is FIT FOR PURPOSE, the same set of data, processed once, forms the basis for absolutely everything in your financial management plan. This is where JOINED-UP-ACCOUNTING starts.
So, with the utmost respect, of course… BUTT OUT.
Systemise your accounts processes
All of them, in detail. Trust me, this is at least as important as systemising your delivery processes.
Get this right and everything financial falls into place and you don’t have to be involved in any of the areas that you do not need to be involved in.
Such is the power of 21st century systems, done right, used correctly, implemented well and run consistently, what has always been a task to be dreaded and postponed, becomes an incredible database of information, a capacity increasing tool and the very foundation of everything that you need to make decisions, drive growth and seize opportunities, based on informed and accurate reports.
The single most important thing that has always been so hard
YOU HAVE TO LOOK INTO THE FUTURE.
Everyone focuses on what’s happened – what happened last month, what happened last year, what happened yesterday. You can’t change that. Yes, you can learn from it, but you simply can’t change it… So don’t dwell on it.
The ONLY reason you should ever look at data that is older than a month is for comparative or review purposes. Otherwise it is useless and prevents you from doing what you need to do, which is to look forward, in the direction of travel.
I’m a snowboarder, or at least I used to be, and I was crap at it because I was always looking behind me, to move successfully in the right direction in basically anything and everything, you must focus your gaze and your attention forward, you must plan your next move, your route and your trajectory. Otherwise you fall on your ar*e, every single time.
It doesn’t have to be hard and it doesn’t have to involve monolithic spreadsheets that no-one understands; it doesn’t need to be perfect and it doesn’t need to drive you crazy.
To start with, you need to ask yourself two very simple questions:
Where am I going?
And when do I want to get there?
Once you know that, you can start to create a model that shows you the way, keeps you on track and keeps you and your team engaged and accountable to that vision.
And the best part? You can do all that using the very same data that you have to keep anyway.
Modern day accounting is about connection, collaboration, systemisation and engagement. Joining up your processes from basic data collation, through management reporting and reliable business intelligence, to detailed forecasts and applications for finance is now EASY.
It’s time to move your accounting and finance needs into the digital age.
About Jane Aylwin
Jane is the founder and driving force behind Added Perspective. Frustrated with the lack of sensible, relevant, accountancy advice available to SMEs, Jane took the plunge and set out on her own in 2004 to provide plain spoken and dependable support to small business owners. Read more
