I get regular questions about what we really mean by WinWeb’s Small Business Infrastructure?

On-demand Small Business Infrastructure™ centers around the idea that business start-ups and growing small businesses need help with numerous administrative tasks that are not core to the business success - such as bookkeeping, it services, internet services, call handling and other such services.

These services - if performed by the business owner - cause a great deal of time wasting - while the fixed cost of a business is still accumulating. This is in our minds a fatally floored business model and can easily be remedied with our infrastructure approach.

We should not expect business start-ups and small business in general to be accountants, bookkeepers, lawyers, marketing & PR gurus and so on. We should provide small business with an infrastructure in which it can concentrate on core business tasks, while at the same time enabling the business owner to stay informed of all relevant business facts like cash flow, sales, HR issues, tax position and more. This will enable him / her to make informed decisions, maybe with the help of an external advisor.

Based on these facts, we have devised a six point on-demand Small Business Infrastructure™ concept, which consist of:

1. WinWeb On-Demand Software Solutions - Anywhere At Anytime.

AccountsOffice and OnlineOffice are our two software offerings, which are based on the SaaS - Software as a Services model, to allow for the following key business benefits:

• tight inclusion of business advisors from the start,
• cultivating outsourcing techniques at the outset, i.e. virtual assistants,
• no IT knowledge needed and hassle free operation,
• real-time multi-user access from anywhere, increasing mobility.

2. WinWeb 24/7 Live Support - We Are Here For You Always.

Providing customer care and support only during business hours is not acceptable to our clients. Experience has shown us that most admin work gets done by small business before nine in the morning or after five in the evening. This practice is essential if the business is to survive it’s early years.

This is why we have provided our much acclaimed customer support for 24 hours a day, seven days a week from the outset. Saving our clients wasted time and money - while setting new standards in customer support. No manuals need to be read - all problems can be solved in real-time online.

3. WinWeb Live - Networking Community for Small Business Only.

To foster collaboration and outsourcing we have expanded our WinWeb Live™ offering to allow for small business community networking - thus enabling the business owner to make decisions about his / her current needs, with the following benefits:

• timeshare virtual assistants for professional results,
• offer contracts of work to contractors on a case-by-case basis,
• promote the business to a large audience or even locally,
• find new work and contracts online

4. Business Advice

Our On-Demand Small Business Infrastructure™ enables business advisors, accountants, bookkeepers and other advisors to have a “Up Close and Personal” relationship with the small business owner, providing key elements for the success of a small business:

• timely and up-to-date advice from anywhere at anytime,
• more efficient advisor function due to SaaS technology, less travel,
• easily expandable advisor network.

5. Solution Partners

Third parties provide external services to complement our services, such as parcel service, office supply services, printing services. These and other services are provided on a bulk buy arrangements by leading businesses in their respective sectors - to provide the most reliable and up-to date service possible - with the effect of enhancing the professional appearance of our clients.

6. ClimateByte™ Technology - For A Cleaner Future.

Our clients are among the biggest demographics concerned with climate change and carbon footprint neutrality. It is a fact that employing remote working and collaboration techniques drastically reduces the damaging business side affects on our environment. We enable our clients to be more eco-friendly and aware, by providing them with our green technology - an ongoing development commitment of WinWeb.

WinWeb welcomes any suggestion that will further enhance our On-Demand Small Business Infrastructure™ concept - especially the development of even more eco-friendly business processes - to serve our small business and business start-up client-base.

The first post in this mini series is related to this issue of cash-flow and so will be many that follow. Cash-flow is the central and most critical management objective for every small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business.

T o perform this small business health-check, ask your self the following questions:

• Do I have a written plan and cash-flow forecast for my business? As I said before, without it it is like driving with your eyes shut.
• Am I efficient in achieving those aims? We often allow non-core issues and irrelevant stuff to “steal” our time, or we are so overwhelmed by work that we do not have the time to stand back and look at our small business - take the time and make those decisions.
• Do you have a feel how my small business works financially? If not, you must be feeling uncomfortable most of the time, again take the time and feel better about your small business.
• When did I plan and monitor my cash-flow last? You need to do this at least once a week or if something happens that is not in the plan. Check your cash-flow each time before you make a bigger purchase or hire staff which is not in the plan, you will quiet easily see if you can afford to do it or not.
• How much reserves does my business have? The best peace of mind is when your small business has substantial reserves, do you have any or are you at least planning to get a 2-3 month reserve buffer?
• Have I re-negociated my terms with my suppliers? What if your suppliers gave you 60 or even 90 days payment terms - put that in your cash-flow and smile, it’s instant reserve. You need to pay your suppliers on time, only then will they trust you enough to give you the extra long payment terms.
• Am I chasing my clients for payment adequately? Do you know the average number of days you clients need to pay you? Give incentives - 2 % off if you pay within 7 days - try and keep your average well below 30 days. If you have not enough time to do credit control outsource it.
• Do I need my overdraft? If you get better payment terms fro your suppliers and do a better job at credit control, you may not need your overdraft anymore, which will save you a lot of money. Don’t cancel your overdraft, but make sure you only pay for it when and if you use it - shop around. On those terms you should get an overdraft, even if you do not need it, so if something unexpected happens you got the cash-flow reserve.

The importance of your cash-flow situation can not be overestimated, as long as you can pay your bills you are in business - as the saying goes: Cash Is King!

You can see other reasons for small business and personal business, like contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants failures in my Health Check Category, if you can add to this list please do so, I would welcome your comments.

I get many questions about bookkeeping and accounting for small business and start-ups, here are a couple of things you should consider before making your decision:

What do you want to achieve? Do you want to:

1. Do you just want to collect your receipts and other documents and than hand it over to someone else?
2. Are you happy to fill in a simple online forms and have the double entry done by an bookkeeper or accountant?
3. Or do you want to do the accounting yourself and have the accountant prepare your tax-returns for you?

Each of these options is OK, as long as you do not relinquish all your responsibility to the other party when you outsource. You need to keep your books up-to-date, so you know where you small business is going and so you can make good and informed decisions.

If you are considering option 2. then their are products on the market that can help you, one of them is our AccountsOffice- Lite Edition ( currently still called CashBook), for a full tri-ledger accounting system you can use our AccountsOffice Standard Edition, both of the single user versions are free BTW.

For small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business, the only way to go is online - I’m sure you think I would say that - but consider this.

You will need to get information fast - to make an urgent decision - how is anyone going to give you advice without up-to-date numbers on your business. There are other benefits to consider, but this one to me is the most crucial. Remember most small businesses fail because of bad financial decisions being taken, often based on false or out of date data.

What if your accountant or bookkeeper wants you to use an offline accounting system - do your business a favor find a new accountant, fast. Accountants are sometimes slow to change, they are also very often very busy people, but you should not worry about that, you need to worry about your business.

I wrote in the past about many accountants wanting to live in the past - that they are not interested in helping you plan your future. Michael Gerber in his book “The E-Myth Revisited” calls these type of business people “technicians” - I agree most of them are and very few have an entrepreneurial outlook in live.

So remember - no planning or no online accounting/bookkeeping for your small business - leave NOW! You owe it to your business.

My first contribution to this blog has resulted from a recent experience had by a new client of my practice with someone who also used the title ‘accountant’.

Firstly, you need to understand in the UK there is no requirement to have any formal training or qualifications before calling yourself an accountant. This does not for one minute mean that someone without formal qualifications is going to be bad, not for one minute, so how do you chose your accountant?

As with anything, I would always say choose an accountant on the recommendations of a friend/colleague. If you know someone who uses an accountant, and they are happy with them, then this is a good starting point. Next, does the accountant have relevant experience in the industry you are in, or an allied industry, after all, it’s going to make life a lot easier if he actually knows a bit about the industry you’re in when offering advice.

But what if you don’t know anyone who can make a recommendation, what next? This is where I would definitely look for an accountant who belongs to a professional body, and holds a current and up to date practicing certificate, at least this way I would know this ‘stranger’ has gone through a certain standard of training and will have had to achieve a minimum level of experience before being admitted to membership.

The decisions don’t stop there though, unlike other countries where there is either one or a very small number of professional accounting bodies, the UK has many, as shown at the end of this post.

In summary, if you know someone who uses an accountant they are happy with meet them first, next find an accountant who understands your industry and finally if you have to make a selection on your own, then meet and interview at least three accountants before making your choice, remembering their membership of a professional body affords you some protection. Good luck!

Here is the list of accounting bodies:

The Association of Certified Accountants (ACCA)
The Association of International Accountants (AIA)
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Englandand Wales (ICAEW)
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS)
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI)
Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA)

Professional bodies whose members cannot act as company auditors:

Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA)
Certified Public Accountants (Ireland) (CPA)
Institute of Financial Accountants (IFA)
Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT)

AAT, ACCA, Accounting, AIA, Bookkeeping, Business Development, Business Start Up, CIMA, CIPFA, CPA, CPAs, ICAEW, ICAI, ICAS, IFA, sme-blog