Have you ever found yourself wondering if you’re getting the most out of your accountant? For the best results, you have to discuss your business goals and look for ways to create a profitable relationship that contributes to your success. Here’s how to start communicating more effectively to ensure the entire team is working toward your goals.

This might seem like an odd place to start, but when you communicate your family goals, your accounting advisor understands your financial responsibilities and sense of risk. Do your kids need an education? Do you have elderly parents you need to consider? Do you support a partner who isn’t working? Is there anyone with special medical needs?

Bringing these goals to the table as well as your business goals, lets your accountant see the bigger picture of your life and can help you work toward hitting all these goals.

Your accountant needs to look at your financial health today, and see how it measures up to your five-year plan and vision for your company tomorrow. With the knowledge of where you want your business to go, they can identify better ways to manage cash, recommend when it makes sense to expand and apply credit more effectively, determine when debt is holding you back or when you are hemorrhaging cash due to ineffective budgeting and bookkeeping. All of these recommendations will be made with your overall financial goals in mind.

They can also provide financial projections so you can see how your five-year plan can play out, both in real-time efforts in the day-to-day operations, as well as how your finances will look in the future. 

Setting key performance indicators helps you measure failures, identify missed opportunities, or use your successes so you can meet your goals sooner than planned. Setting these KPIs based on your five year plan makes them even more effective.

This is all about what you need out of your business to support your lifestyle. A little different than family goals, this conversation shares your lifestyle ideals and helps put your personal income needs in perspective. Some of the topics to discuss should include:

• Your overall life goals
• Your ideal retirement scenario
• Your inheritance for your kids or partner
• Big purchase dreams such as a second home, a boat, a trip around the world, or annual big-ticket vacations

 Business coaching requires a good understanding of your ideal lifestyle choices. This information guides your accounting advisor to make the strongest recommendations on how you are being compensated by your business.

Many business owners forget the importance of long term-goals. A conversation about your five-year plan should naturally lead to a focus on long-term goals for the next 10 or even 20 years. Accountant business coaching ensures your short-term goals help you meet your long-term goals. Some short-term steps that provide incremental long-term improvements might include: 

• Increasing income and reducing production expenses by a certain percentage over a two year period
• Increasing brand awareness to expand your reach
• Taking more market share by finding new targets
• Opening new locations
• Hiring more employees
• Developing/launching a certain amount of new products

 Each step should be designed to make a noticeable impact on achieving your longer-term goals.

An accounting advisor takes your input and creates a plan to help reach your goals. Regular reviews of your reporting numbers keep you pointed in the right direction to achieve both business and personal success. Having someone on your team dedicated to these tasks proves invaluable to your overall success.

We built our Business Compass Program to help business owners like you reach their goals. This 12-month program sets the framework for you to know, understand and lead your financial outlook – not just at tax time, but throughout the entire year.

Our profitability and growth accounting coaching process gives you access to real-time decision-making strategies, tools and advice empowering you to stay focused on your business and financial goals all year long.

 Schedule your free 30-minute Introductory Call to learn more about how our program can be the beginning of true financial control and health.

For more clarity, confidence and control of your business financials, visit our Entrepreneur’s Guide to Accounting for more valuable articles like this one.