According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), 25% of small businesses say that inflation is the single most important problem they face in operating their businesses. The costs of raw materials, labor, employee benefits, health insurance, commercial insurance, financing, you name it—they’re all sky high and present real challenges for small businesses. Sure, they can raise the price of their own goods and services, but there’s not much wiggle room as consumer spending is also starting to cool and adding to the pressure.
Client advisory services (CAS) practices can really differentiate themselves as true business partners and advisors and create more value for clients by helping them address some of their toughest questions during these times, including how to think about margins, pricing, managing costs and securing much-needed capital.
Here are three services that your CAS practice can deliver to help your clients navigate this difficult environment.
Delivering a holistic view of cash flow
Operating with razor-thin margins and ongoing uncertainty, small business leaders need stronger capabilities for quickly and accurately forecasting future cash flows. It’s no longer as simple as determining how much cash is in the bank and comparing it to upcoming monthly expenses. Today, the payment landscape is much more complex, with myriad vendors establishing their own requirements for how and when payments are received. For example, some suppliers may require upfront payment by check. Some provide their goods or services first, then require payment by check. Others require credit card payments. They may even assign variable costs – like a 3% fee for credit card transactions. All of which makes it more difficult to effectively anticipate and manage cash flow.
Fortunately, firms have access to a number of advanced tools to help clients analyze and understand their cash flows to make more informed business decisions. As an example, BILL’s integrated financial operations platform can help streamline the data, bringing it all together in one place to give clients a clear, accurate view of their current and future cash flow requirements. For firms, this creates an important advisory opportunity, giving them the ability to identify trends and provide more strategic insights to clients.
Enabling decision-making with financial planning & analysis
This is the time for clients to sharpen their focus on strategic, big-picture issues that will determine their success over the long term. Right now, they’re scrambling to make smart decisions on a host of critical issues. Should we hire more people—and how will that affect our financial picture? When can we confidently launch our new product line without affecting payroll? How will raising prices by 2% impact our finances—and how can we expect it to influence demand? And many more.
Firms have a key role to play here, collaborating with clients to understand their strategic goals and key business drivers, then using financial planning & analysis (FP&A) tools such as Jirav to create real-time, driver-based financial models to guide the planning process. With clients’ operational data, goals and business/market assumptions built into the models, they can make smarter, more informed decisions about a wider range of scenarios they’re likely to face in the future. Along the way, they can also easily generate automated reports that summarize their financial forecasts, budget variances and other key metrics.
Accessing capital to accelerate small business growth
Many small business leaders are worried about having ready access to the capital they need to keep their businesses running—and to take advantage of growth opportunities as they arise. But many are unsure whether they should take on capital now or wait. They need a trusted advisor who can help them find the right financing at the right time to accelerate growth opportunities and put the business on a path to higher profitability over the long term.
Today, most of your clients primarily rely on banks for their financing needs. But the process of securing critical business funding from banks can be overly time consuming and out of step with clients’ real needs. CPAs understand these clients’ financing needs better than anyone. And with new financial technology (fintech) tools developed specifically to help firms deliver financing services directly to clients with minimal effort, bypassing traditional banks, your CAS practice can help clients get the funding they need, when they need it. The CPA Business Funding Portal from CPA.com and Biz2Credit puts your firm at the center of clients’ loan applications and transactions throughout the process, giving your team real-time updates and access to document requests that helps you advocate for your clients on one of their biggest pain points and advise them in their decision making.
Deepen your value as a strategic partner to small business clients
This article only scratches the surface of what’s possible for CAS practices as they look to help their small business clients navigate an uncertain business landscape and position for growth. Your clients’ needs are clear. The path to helping them is equally clear. Learn more about the opportunities to expand your value (and the technologies that enable them) and deepen your role as your clients’ most trusted advisor.
