Join us this Wednesday, June 3rd, for an in depth discussion on cash and profit forecasting where you will learn the basics of forecasting, how to do it in LivePlan, and how to offer the service to your clients in both the best or worst case working conditions.

For most small business owners, payroll is the most important payment they will make each month. It’s also very often the largest monthly expense. For so many of your small business owner clients, likely their first monthly cash flow consideration is, “can I make payroll?”

There are plenty of good reasons to take out a business loan. Maybe you’re looking to purchase new equipment, expand operations, or even increase your working capital over a period of time. With the right planning and reasoning, a business loan is often a necessary step that most business owners will have to take at one point or another.

The public accounting industry is changing rapidly, and your clients are turning to you for advice on their business growth challenges and opportunities.

Your firm needs to be able to offer Strategic Advising services confidently and profitably.

The passing of the $310 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) expansion provides a second round of much-needed relief for small businesses struggling to survive through the COVID-19 crisis. Not only does it help them extend their cash runway, it will help them maintain their staff and cover needed expenses. As a strategic advisor you’ll need to help your small business clients plan for the loan and manage their cashflow.

Right now, practices everywhere are trying to adapt to a drastically different work landscape that often changes from day-to-day. Your team is working remotely. Your tax season has been extended. Your clients are dealing with disaster relief efforts and trying to stay above water.

When small business owners are stressed from financial uncertainty they need information from their accountant that will help them from feeling blind-sided by unknowns, and enable them to forge a clear path forward.

Helping your clients understand their cash flow is an integral part of delivering quality advisory services. But cash flow isn’t just about the current financial position.

Creating an accurate cash flow forecast gives your clients the insight necessary to drive decision making for their business.

Over the last few months, we’ve released a variety of new features and improvements for LivePlan, many of which are specifically developed for LivePlan Strategic Advisors.
Our continued goal is to improve the overall experience for you and your clients—allowing you to serve more clients, build better forecasts, and generate strategic and thoughtful reports.

Strategic advising is a specific type of small business advising service. It focuses on lean business planning, financial forecasting, and monthly financial performance tracking. In the accounting profession, it fits within the umbrella of client advisory services (CAS).

What differentiates strategic advising from other client advisory services is its focus on planning and iterative forecasting as the primary means of measuring and driving small business growth.

The notion of planning, and adjusting our plan, is a fundamental part of all of our lives. We do it daily, sometimes without even realizing it, on things both big and small. Planning for retirement? Planning a vacation? Planning for next month’s grocery bill?

Implementing a process to manage the work of Strategic Advising is the key to making it happen in a profitable, seamless way. The LivePlan Method is a business process and pricing model for strategic advising services.

“Get comfortable with the uncomfortable.”

This modest sentence is powerful. It’s only in the difficult places that we grow, so the more we can get comfortable with things that make us uncomfortable, the stronger we become.

As a Strategic Advisor, you’re a critical partner for your small business owner clients. The work you do and the expertise you offer helps your clients establish business goals, and guides their growth.

Your work should cover questions such as these:

New entrepreneurs frequently ask me for advice about forecasting their sales. These entrepreneurs are always optimistic about the future of their new company, but when it comes to talking about the details, most aren’t sure how to predict future sales and how much money they’re going to make.