Adequate spending controls are important for every business during all phases of its life, but this is especially true during start up and initial growth phases. One key part of scaling a business is outsourcing non-revenue generating tasks to trusted professionals. This frees up time for our clients to focus on their core business, which I discussed some more in this blog post last year.
At Premiere Financial Consultants, we believe any company can outsource their accounts payable function to us without giving up spending control.
How do we achieve this? Through detailed control processes that are specific to every client’s unique business and needs. We will work closely with each client to prevent disbursement errors from happening in the first place (aka preventative controls), as well as making a periodic (quarterly at a minimum) review of financial statements to identify expense categories that were over budget (aka detective controls). More on the importance of budgeting can be found in my previous blog post.
Our Preventative Controls work well due to our strict approval process. We work with each client to create a list of recurring monthly expenses, both fixed and with a small pre-approvable variance, and pay vendors on their behalf. Invoices that are on the preapproved list or within the preapproved range don’t require any additional signoff, saving our clients time and hassle.
The preapproved list is reviewed and refined as necessary – annually, semi-annually, or quarterly. Any vendor invoice we receive that is not on the preapproved list, or not within the preapproved range, is flagged for client approval. To save our clients even more time and hassle, we use Bill.com, a cloud based accounts payable system, to facilitate vendor invoice processing, approval, and payment.
Click here to read more about our Outsourcing Services, and don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions or if you’re wondering if financial outsourcing is right for your business.