Are you looking forward to your first balance sheet. Your first financial year on 31 December has just been closed. You know that your certified public accountant will give you an appointment to submit your balance sheet within the next three months, although the’tax authorities accepts a deadline of mid-May. In fact, there is a tolerance for a later filing date for closings on 31 December.
You are not familiar with the rite of « submission of the balance sheet ». So you're wondering how you're going to get it. communication. There are several possible scenarios.
There are two possible scenarios for the assessment appointment:
1/ the chartered accountant sends you your accounts by e-mail
It's so much more convenient to receive your balance sheet by e-mail. Once you've got past this obvious fact, you seem completely overwhelmed because you don't know what to do with it. What's more, you find that the fees paid to the firm over the year are high. You don't know why, but you seem to be alone in your difficulty in managing your business.
As you're also well organised, you file the annual accounts in a file on your network. On the other hand, you don't know what you've done right or wrong. It would appear that you have made money, since you have to pay tax. You don't have a benchmark to measure yourself against. Finally, since the year has gone by and the new year has already got off to a good start, you're hoping to make a success of this new year. You'll see the results next year when you receive your annual accounts by email...
2/ the institutionalised annual meeting
In practice, you have a physical appointment at the firm. Of course, at this time of COVID, the videoconferencing (on ZOOM, TEAMS and SKYPE) is also used. But if we're talking about a not-so-distant past that we hope to return to soon, face-to-face meetings are of a much higher quality. The technological challenge of getting connected doesn't detract from the pleasure of getting together.
Imagine arriving at your accountant's office. You are greeted by name and asked to wait in the reception area. It won't take long, as you have an appointment and your accountant is always on time. By the time you've skimmed through the brochures on the services provided by your firm, you've got a coffee brought to you by a member of staff with a broad smile. It puts you at ease.
Your accountant comes to greet you and takes you to the meeting room, where everything is already set up. You enter the room and see your company's name on the giant screen with the phrase « presentation of the year's results ». It's heart-warming to be expected. Then you realise that you are going to talk about the accounts for the year just ended. You know a little about your figures, but you're delighted to have a chance to talk about them. precise feedback on accounting data. You can see that the bank account is positive, but you also know that you shouldn't confuse cash flow with profits.
3/ An easy-to-understand presentation
Your chartered accountant starts the meeting by scrolling through slides that make your business easier to understand. The aim is clearly to to the point and not get bogged down in accounting considerations that you don't care about. For you, the important thing is to know whether your business is profitable, to what extent and why. Are your costs higher than those in your sector? Is the margin good?
When you see the results of your profitability, you start asking practical questions to help you understand what's going wrong. Setting up a business isn't easy. Managing it is no easy task. Especially as you have to finding solutions to develop your sales, chase up customer payments, pay off your debts, particularly your suppliers, your URSSAF debts and your VAT debts. Finally, you are constantly worried about recruiting. Yet you know that your development depends on building a team you can rely on. Your chartered accountant will encourage you in this direction. He will advises using this year's good results to invest in staff in the same way as you would buy useful equipment.
4/ Understanding your balance sheet
After addressing the profitability, you mention the balance sheet balances. You're rather reluctant, because your introductory accounting courses during your studies left you with a negative feeling about your understanding of this subject. However, you find that your accountant is quite good at explaining things. His pedagogy enables you to understand that the volume of trade receivables and the high level of stock weigh on working capital requirements. Fortunately, your initial contributions when you started your business financed this requirement. You understand the direct impact on your cash flow, and you take the decision to relaunch trade receivables as soon as you get back to your office. You include this new «routine» in your schedule. From now on, you want to follow up your customers regularly.
5/ A time for sharing
After looking back over the year, you're pleasantly surprised to be asked about your objectives for the new year. You thought your accountant only worked in the past. He explains that it is a an important opportunity to exchange ideas and give you advice for the year ahead. By knowing what you want to do, it is able to tell you what you need to do. points to bear in mind (tax measures, recruitment aid for apprentices, etc.)
You arrive at the end of a review meeting and you're pleased to have understood what was important to understand during the meeting. You also have benchmarks for managing the new year. Your chartered accountant points out that it is difficult to run a business without dashboard and tell you what they can offer you. You'll quickly realise that the investment in this new mission will pay off in the form of increased monitoring of your management. He has provided you with a link to an explanatory video on YouTube for reading the dashboard. You will find your modern chartered accountant which surprises you.
Our solution
As you may have read, the state of mind when it comes to communicating annual accounts is not trivial. In one case, you are fulfilling your legal obligation without obtaining information that is useful for help you improve. It's understandable if you think your accountant's fees are too high.
