Bookkeepers and Accountants. I don’t hate them, they are important & necessary.

However, there’s a problem with them.

For most tradies and builders, they are the people you go to for advice, particularly advice about  your money.

But the truth is, they are not very good at that.

Both bookkeepers and accountants have a focus on compliance & saving – saving money, saving cost or saving tax.

Bookkeepers tend to be mostly concerned with making sure your accounts are compliant with the law so you don’t get in trouble. They want you to lodge your BAS or GST correctly, pay people correctly, and don’t overpay your GST.

Accountants care about tax; making sure you don’t pay too much, don’t do something that’s not allowed and then get in trouble, and they care about your business structure & protecting your assets.

Those are good things.

The problems come when they are your main/only source of advice and guidance in the area of money and the finances of your business.

Because there’s more to it than that.

You need to understand your numbers in real time – you need to know:

• if your business is running profitably, 
• if your pricing is right, 
• if your jobs are running profitably, 
• and where your margins are sitting (in reality, after jobs are finished, not just in your head when you’re pricing).

Bookkeepers and Accountants (generally, not all of them) don’t really think like this and aren’t usually interested in digging into understanding labour costs or job back-costing or margins. 

And they don’t want to cost you more money so they’re reluctant to dig deep. If they’re your only source of advice and you don’t lead them, you won’t get what you need to run your business well. 

Don’t do that. 

What you should do, now that you’re thinking like a business owner rather than a tradie, is lead them instead of letting them lead you. (And if they don’t want to allow that, get new ones who will!)

You need your accounting system set up so you can:

• look at it and know that the numbers are accurate and up to date (at least only a few days behind).
• be confident they’re right and that entries are in the right places.
• check whether your gross profit margin is where you need it to be, and the same for your net profit margin.

I’ve made a guide to help you do that with your bookkeeper.

What you don’t want is an accountant who advises you that you don’t need your accounting system to do that.

Or an accountant who says he can do your tax and GST for you from the transactions in your business bank account (someone actually said that to my client).

You don’t need a bookkeeper who batches their time and does all yours once a month.

Or who puts wages in the overheads section when you want to see them as costs of sales, because if you’re a tradie, that’s what they are.

You need to understand those costs so you can set your prices correctly and check that you’re achieving those margins.

It’s not enough to feel ok if there’s money in the bank and stress out if there’s not.

As a business owner – that’s your job – to understand your numbers so you can make sure the business is profitable.

I can help – of course.

I can help you whip your current people into shape or get new ones. And I can help you understand those numbers of yours so you can make decisions that will make them better.

If you’re keen on that, hit me up and I’ll explain how it works. And if you want the guide, ask for that.

Jon