Kamran Bashir | My CFO Portal https://mycfoportal.ca My CFO Portal | Accounting and Bookkeeping Fri, 27 Dec 2019 07:02:48 +0000 en hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.5 https://mycfoportal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/cropped-cfo-logo-32x32.png Kamran Bashir | My CFO Portal https://mycfoportal.ca 32 32 Financial Management https://mycfoportal.ca/financial-management/ https://mycfoportal.ca/financial-management/#comments Thu, 03 Oct 2019 07:25:22 +0000 https://mycfoportal.ca/?p=220388

Understanding profit margins is the most critical component of healthy financial management.

 

For a product-oriented business, profit margin mainly focuses on goods and materials, and that can easily be quantifiable.

 

For a service-based business, it is a bit trickier to calculate the profit margins. Several factors decide on costing a service stream and setting up prices for sustainable margins.

 

As one of the top suppliers of business services, Onshore Advisors make sure that we provide the best possible solutions to our clients to manage their finances effectively. When we get a service-based project, we consider quantitative and qualitative factors to current and future return of investment.

 

We also compare it with peers to figure out whether the business is getting a good return on investment or not.

 

Owning a business can be rewarding and remunerative, but still, it is pretty tough to make it sustainable at the startup phase. A company got to have accounting personnel/department available to have a visibility of cash flow. If somehow, an accounting function available, it could slow down your progress or even be disastrous in some cases.

 

As one of the top suppliers of business services in Canada, we can help you irrespective of the stage of your business.

 

We have a team of highly professional accountants working right now. Our accountants believe that accounting is the language of business. The goal of Onshore Advisors is we are going to provide the best service in managing your business finances.

 

We, as a top supplier of business and accounting service provider in Canada, want to attain that level of significance where no one is looking at. An organization that is entirely devoted to his services will face only one worry about the profit that they are whoppingly immense. In short, all we are trying to say is that if an organization has a service that we provide has a great chance to make it big in the future.

 

Onshore Advisors, through its division called “My CFO Portal” provide high-quality services for outsourced bookkeeping, accounting, and also payroll services for businesses across Canada and globally.

 

 

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SME Budgets https://mycfoportal.ca/sme-budgets/ https://mycfoportal.ca/sme-budgets/#comments Thu, 03 Oct 2019 07:18:51 +0000 https://mycfoportal.ca/?p=220384 Is Budgeting a Waste of Time for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME)?

There is a famous quote from TshOxenreider “The simplest definition of a budget is “telling your money where to go.”

It is crucial for SMEs to estimate their income and expenses, and based on this estimation, tell their money where to go.

Budgeting ensures planning and monitoring of financial activities; therefore, it is essential for SMEs who would like to sustain and grow their operations.

 

What is a Budget:

An estimate of income and expenses for a set period is known as a budget.

 

Are There Different Types of Budgets:

Yes, there are various types of budgets, depending upon where it is required. These include but not limited to historical or incremental budget, flexible budget, zero-based budget, Kaizen budget, etc.

It is a fact that due to constraints of finance and lack of staff and controls, SME may consider Historical or incremental budget as a management and control tool for their organization.

 

Approaches to Budgeting:

There are mainly two approaches to budgeting. The top-down and second one is bottom-up. To elaborate top-down budgeting, it means the top-level (strategic management) of the business decides the budget for a particular period, and the whole team works to achieve that budget. Another one is bottom-up budgeting which attempts to determine the underlying cost of each segment of the organization and then total up each department. As this is being developed at the operational level, therefore it is less stressful for the operational and tactical management, and this has more achievability sense and targets as compared to top-down budget.

 

Factors to consider while developing the budgets:

When we talk about planning and budgeting, there are various factors that we need to look at:

  • If a company is new, then we may have to a look at the financial data of another comparable company who is of the same size and also operates in the same industry. A new company needs to look at the sales, operating costs, revenue, and salaries of the comparable company to develop a budget. This is a kind of historical budgeting.
  • Whereas when an established SME considers developing a budget, then the company has to follow some essential rules otherwise result will be pretty different as per expectations. We see many new SMEs start their business and in short period fails, one of the reasons behind this failure is lack of planning and budgeting.
  • A very optimistic and high budget may lead to lack of motivation and stressful due to un-achievability.

Similarly, a pessimistic budget may lead to lack of focus and desired targets.

  • Lack of focus on elements of costs. As an example is research and development cost.

Research and development costs include fixed cost and variable cost elements. A startup has to bear these expenses, whether the company is generating revenue or not for a particular period. As the fixed part is unavoidable, therefore a proper budget development activity may devise a plan to minimize the variable elements of costs.

  • Another factor that has a significant influence on the company is forecasting a revenue stream, which means that a company must have a goal on which the whole team needs to work together. While developing a budget, a company must use conservative and achievable revenue estimate/targets.
  • Emphasis on the non-financial budgeting factors also plays a part in developing a financial target/budget as one may say that a company cannot generate their forecasted revenues without having a strong customer base.
  • Discussing expenditure with tactical management (head of the department) will sort out many issues and problems regarding practical budgeting and behavioral issues during the financial / budget period.
  • Creating a contingency plan or allocating costs for contingency may help small business to do better in times of recession. Conducting risk analysis and planning for financial under performances helps to develop a contingency plan.
  • The most critical thing regarding budgeting is planning a regular budget review. If a budget is reviewed quarterly, it allows flexibility and acting in response to a situation helps a business to grow properly.

 

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Accounting Software Vs. Enterprise Resource Planning Software (ERP) https://mycfoportal.ca/accounting-software-vs-enterprise-resource-planning-software-erp/ https://mycfoportal.ca/accounting-software-vs-enterprise-resource-planning-software-erp/#comments Fri, 13 Sep 2019 12:12:38 +0000 https://mycfoportal.ca/?p=220341

 

During the past several years, business management technology has evolved. Advancement in technology has simplified the processes of data capturing and has provided unlimited capacity and capability to analyze the data and use it for the management of businesses.

To most people, software for accounting and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software are interchangeable, however, in reality, these are two very different things, and they aren’t interchangeable.

Accounting Software

Accounting mainly deals with quantitative data. The role of accounting is to capture, retain, and report transactions that involve income, expenses, assets, and liabilities.

Accounting, in today’s world, is carried out using the software, that may be cloud-based (using web) or stored locally (on the company’s computer or server).

The role of bookkeeping software is to record business transactions to facilitate an accountant in generating financial details. The financial information may consist of a balance sheet, statement of accounts, trial balance, statement of cash flow, profit and loss, assets, and taxes, among other items.

The business accounting software, previously, had limited capabilities. Lately, adding new features to the existing software are making lives of accountants and entrepreneurs easy. For instance, software like Quickbooks, Xero Accounting, SAGE have added more functions, including inventory management, purchase orders, and timesheets, to name a few.

Most of legacy small business accounting software providers are advancing towards cloud service. The data remains online, and it enhances the ability of the bookkeeping software to interface with other online tools. A great example is Hubdoc, a document management system that works with the business accounting software and helps in allocating receipts data to the transactions.

Business accounting software provides many benefits for the company, such as accelerating the work of financial statements, avoiding miscalculation, improving job efficiency, automating various transactions, assisting companies in the decision-making process by presenting accurate data, and figuring the financial condition of the company at any time. In short, bookkeeping software provides a good snapshot of business financial health.

ERP System

On the other hand, ERP system is a different ball game altogether. An ERP system collects data and transaction from the various business processes into a centralized data warehouse.

It is a suite of software that business or organization use to manage day-to-day activities such as accounting, HR, manufacturing, procurement, project management, supply chain, CRM. ERP system integrates these various functions into one complete system to streamline processes and information across the entire organization. ERP system uses machine learning and AI to improve visibility and efficiency across every aspect of the business. ERP can be on cloud, on-premise, and hybrid. They can be of different size for small to a huge corporation. Some well-know ERP companies are SAP, Oracle Netsuite, MS Dynamic, ZOHO, Odoo, to name a few.

Difference

Although the integrated accounting system and financial module in ERP system have some similarities. For instance, both include financial accounting functionality such as double-entry bookkeeping, a general ledger, and journal and account reconciliation capabilities. Both also have tax analysis and reporting features, and also help with budgeting and planning. However, as an “enterprise resource planner” manage all aspect of the business.

Some of the vital differences are:

  • Bookkeeping software does not include sales and customer relationship management.
  • ERP software often has a CRM module that lets you access and updates contact information and sees the history of previous communications.
  • Accounting software is limited in providing real-time data. Since ERP have integrated all the system of organization, the output we get is real-time

How to Choose Best Accounting System for Small Business:

The best answer is “the one which provides you value for money”.  A small businesses lack financial and funding flexibility therefore they have to find out the best possible solution within their budget.  Another aspect is implementation, operation, control and sustainability of selected business accounting system.

Although there are several cost affective ERP software available in the market but still in order to operate such system, small businesses have to invest in people and IT infrastructure (physical or virtual).  Whereas for the growing businesses, it is in their best interest to select enterprise resource planning software.

Online solutions of accounting packages are considered as the best accounting system for small business.  Quickbooks online and Xero are examples of cost effective solutions for a small scale company.  These systems are kept on evolving and they are even capturing financial and non-financial data which is enough for the operations of small businesses.

Why mycfoportal.ca?

We, at mycfoportal.ca, provide free consultation to the clients about the best accounting system for small business.  Although we believe that business scale is not a consideration in selection of a business accounting system but it has been considered as a major factor for this decision making.  We have seen that medium to large enterprises are also using Quickbooks or Xero as their business accounting solution.

Our affordable packages include hassle free services for the small and medium (SME) businesses to outsource their accounting function and concentrate on operations and commercial aspects of their business. We are a team of highly experienced specialists covering all aspects of business planning, accounting and consulting.

 

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