The OAI Way

Many Canadian small businesses struggle with producing timely and accurate accounting information they can actually use in managing their business. These struggles emerge for a variety of reasons. 

There are several signs that your accounting infrastructure might be lacking: 

*Your P&L shows a healthy profit, but you never seem to have enough cash on hand. This might be due to a large amount of unpaid customer invoices or overpurchased inventory.

*Your income tax owing doesn’t seem right compared to the amount of business you’re doing. Loan proceeds might be misclassified as taxable revenue.

*You have “uncategorized” income or expenses sitting on your P&L. This is a tell-tale sign that nobody is monitoring your accounting data because every transaction has to be for *something*.

*Nobody has reconciled the bank (or other key  accounts) in ages. If cash balances haven’t been verified, odds are nothing else has been either, and your financial statements mostly represent a series of guesses.

*You’re showing negative balances for assets or payables on your balance sheet. Hint: you can’t own -$30,000 of inventory, or have -$10,000 owing to the bank.

*Vendors threatening to cut off delivery of products or services due to unpaid bills because nobody is monitoring cash flow or payables on a regular basis.

If your business is experiencing problems like these, I will first engage in a diagnostic review of your accounting systems and infrastructure, and provide a report on what needs to be done. If there are any deficiencies identified, I will then implement those changes.

During this phase, I will also prepare a Cash and Clarity Report, which includes a set of standard financial reports, a 90-day cash flow forecast, custom one-time reports on other metrics that are key to your business success, and a follow-up face-to-face meeting to discuss your next steps.

Once this onboarding phase is complete, I will carry on as your finance co-pilot, providing trusted, advice from an experienced professional accountant who will demystify the information that your accounting infrastructure provides.