Small Business Accounting Services that improve financial reporting, creating the foundation for a successful business.

Financial Accounting (For Compliance and External Reporting)

As a business owner, why is this important? Financial Accounting Standards apply consistent treatment to records and transactions. These standards give credibility to your Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, and Profit & Loss Statements so that creditors, investors or taxing authorities for loans, investments or adherence to laws and regulations have a common frame of reference.

If you’re looking to expand your company and courting investors or in need of a loan to finance equipment purchases, an investor or creditor may require additional “comfort” in the form of audited financial statements.

Another relevant point for business owners…there are differences in how some transactions are treated for book purposes vs. tax purposes. Depreciation, non-taxable income and meals and entertainment, are just three examples.

Financial statements are historical – they report what has happened. Financial statements also include adjusting transactions that have no economic impact – cashless transactions, like depreciation, for example. For these reasons, unmodified, traditional financial statements should never be used as a tool for current or forward-looking decisions.

Financial Accounting Characteristics:

• Adheres to laws, regulations and accepted principles
• Maintains business standards and proper protocols
• Regulatory oversight
• Codes of conduct
• Concerned with reporting past activities

Managerial Accounting (For Improved Decision-making, Performance, Outcomes – Internal Users)

Managerial Accounting is concerned with using accounting/financial data and modifying it to only include information that has an ECONOMIC IMPACT toward making future decisions. These methods help to run and grow your business.

Managerial Accounting methods/techniques are also types of Advisory services because they create data to aid future decisions. Creating financial projections and break-even points are great examples of modifying financial data to create targets to enable plans. If you project a seasonal sales slump in the next 3-4 quarters, and a cash shortfall, you can plan ahead with financing alternatives (like a line of credit) to mitigate this problem.

More on Depreciation. Depreciation on assets is required for financial reporting compliance, but depreciation as it’s normally applied for financial or tax reporting, does not measure the amount of productive capacity that is subtracted from an asset or the amount of productive capacity remaining. Depreciation, in many cases is an expense that just reflects the passage of time, it does not (and should not) have any bearing on future decision making. If you want to gauge remaining productive capacity, use alternate measures that consider wear and tear.

Managerial Accounting: 

• Includes only data that has an economic impact – Non-cash transactions are normally excluded
• Is NOT part of compliance
• Is for (internal) management decision making
• Focused on providing information to aid future decision-making