Expanding your Practice
Many accountants and bookkeepers have begun to expand their practices beyond the traditional roles we have come to know. Some have begun to consider offering additional services to their clients. Accounts Payable Services is one area in which you can expand your practice and create value for your client and new revenue streams for your practice.
Why Accounts Payable as a service? Business owners often start managing most of their A/P, A/R, Payroll, and other administrative duties. Over time as their business grows, this can quickly become overwhelming, and unmanageable for the average business owner. This will require them to hire additional staff, incur additional training expenses, and possibly fall victim to a learning curve they cannot afford. They need this done, done right, and done efficiently. This is where your accounting firm comes in.
Most business owners have already engaged with an accounting firm for their day-to-day bookkeeping, tax prep, and various accounting tasks. Now, you can offer to take on their Accounts Payable as a billable service as well. This allows the business owner to save on human resources, training costs, and other in-house headaches. Because they pay you to manage their A/P there is less for the business owner to stress about, which leaves them to focus on performing other business operations. In turn, this creates loyalty to you and makes you an even greater invaluable partner in their business.
Make sure to join our webinar presented by Liz Scott with Tipalti, "Pros of Being an Outsourced Accounts Payable Advisor" on August 4. You can register here.
There are several benefits to offering A/P as a service.
- You suggest best practices and benchmarking A/P and possess more excellent knowledge of the A/P process
- You increase the efficiency in this area for the business owner
- You provide an opportunity for the business owner to cut or lower their organizational costs
- You lower their financial and compliance risks with automation
- Technology can offer greater controls to reduce fraud and error
- Importantly, you develop a deeper and more valuable relationship with your client
Above is just a small list of the benefits and value you provide to your client by offering A/P as a service. When you are asked, “what’s in it for them?”, now they know!
By offering Accounts Payable as a service, you take on intrinsically valuable roles for your client. A big selling point to this is risk management. Anytime a business owner takes on new employees to perform a task outside of the business owner’s area of expertise, they introduce risk into their process due to lack of knowledge and experience. They automatically minimize this risk by hiring you, the accounting professional, to do this for them.
Benefits of Automation
A benefit they may not even realize is your ability to automate the process for them. While for the business owner, A/P can be a tedious manual process, they have always done out of necessity; you have access to the best software to make this process automatic. In doing so, you also can track and report this activity back to the business owner as a part of the reporting and bookkeeping you already provide. Reports with due dates and amounts will quickly become a powerful visual tool for the client. This allows them to see how they are spending their money and may create opportunities for them to make changes, which can improve their cash flow. If nothing else, they have a clear picture of what is going on with the money they have going out.
Finally, this is a resource improvement for the client. Having to hire additional employees aside, their time and attention is a resource they can leverage. This is in and of itself a resource improvement. And they are getting the most for their money by hiring you, their knowledgeable accounting professional they have come to know and rely upon.
So, how do you perform this service? Using QBO and Accounts Payable automation, you go through the steps to:
- Allow for vendor onboarding with year-end 1099 compliance
- Arrange a timeline for their bill/invoice submissions
- Automate the bill data entry
- Take the necessary steps for their bill coding
- Demonstrate self-regulated steps options for bill approval
- Setup push-button bill payment
- Provide valuable reporting back to the client
Accounting and bookkeeping are necessary for all businesses. Large, small, and actively growing businesses all require a trusted accounting advisor. If they are wise, they already have a relationship with you. Business owners incorporate you into their business model as an expert to gain understanding and rest confidently in the assuredness that they can rely on your expertise. Additionally, the benefit you provide to your client in providing financial data helps them make informed business decisions based on your input and advice. Offering Accounts Payable as a service to your client furthers your position with your client and makes you an even more significant asset to their business.
To learn more about being an expert advisor providing accounts payable services be sure to sign up for our webinar on August 4. This webinar will include a working demo of Tipalti Accounts Payable solution for business. Register here.