What's the Role of Your Back Office?

When customers, clients and entrepreneurs visualize any business, they usually imagine the operation's storefront, logo, products, services or marketing campaigns. In other words, most people choose to define businesses by their brands, products, services, ideas and messages.

Behind the attractive exterior and desirable offerings, however, at the heart of most successful businesses, you will find a well-functioning back office that provides the platform for organizational growth. In essence, your company's back office is the lifeblood of everything your business does and will do.

The efficiency and reliability of the back office ensures the health of your business and allows you to continue to do what you do best – focus on your core competencies.

The Back Office: Your Foundation for Financial and Operational Success

Your small or medium sized company's complete back office may consist of HR, Operations, IT, and Accounting and Compliance. The back office should stay abreast of ever-changing federal regulations, safety laws and employment standards, in addition to maintaining up-to-date information systems and bookkeeping records.

The back office should help strengthen the infrastructure of your business by establishing and maintaining efficient business operations. In this article, we focus mainly on the accounting and compliance functions of your back office.

The Layers That Build The Accounting Foundation Of Your Back Office:

• Accounting Systems Design and Optimization - A fully integrated accounting system to maintain and manage all of your company's bookkeeping, payroll, and accounting functions, streamlining financial operations and reporting.
• Policies and Procedures - The design and implementation of your company's policies and procedures, covering everything from daily financial operations, weekly and monthly reporting, due diligence and bookkeeping and accounting best practices.
• Compliance - The necessary and legally required responsibilities with respect to financial reporting and record keeping – Efficient bookkeeping and accounting practices involves maintaining accurate financial records essential to tax compliance and for avoiding audits, and enables you to keep track of your company's financial (and overall) wellbeing.
• Staffing and the Cycle of Hiring - Management Reporting will help determine a budget for the number of employees needed for profitable operation. The back office must also be able to synchronize the timing of onboarding and training new employees with the demand created by your growing business.

Transform Your Back Office from Mundane to Miraculous

Establishing a smart back office helps create operational efficiency and build a strong financial foundation for your business.. With a streamlined, integrated system and accurate data, you can leverage a wealth of financial information to optimize every business decision you make. Management accounting and cash flow forecasting can be tailored to accommodate successful strategic planning.

System Optimization: Recognizing the Difference Between a Successful, or Struggling, Back Office

A neglected back office is one that seems to work against you rather than for you. In other words, if you still see your back office as a mundane chore that primarily exists to take up your valuable time, then you are overlooking one of your company's greatest assets.

For example, business owners, who neglect their back offices and do not take advantage of the financial information at their fingertips, often find themselves in cash flow binds. These business owners often become too caught up in doing what they do best: focusing on product development, sales and networking. Without a full accounting department in place they may not getting the kinds of cash management tools they need to forecast their weekly and monthly needs. As a result, these business owners tend to find themselves reacting to negative cash crunch situations, rather than proactively avoiding cash shortfalls.

What sets a successful back office accounting solution apart from a struggling one is its ability to help business owners foresee cash flow issues and take proactive steps to avoid these sorts of challenges before they occur. In addition to cash flow forecasting, an experienced accounting team will also help you pinpoint and correct costly inefficiencies in your business, predict your cycle of hiring and establish policies and procedures that work for your business's bottom line rather than against it.

Outsource Back Office Functions, Optimize Your Small Business Accounting System & Eliminate the Burden

The right online accounting and bookkeeping services provider can help you create a smart back office and strong financial foundation to drive growth and success in your company. An outsourced accounting department as part of your  back office frees up your time by tackling day to day bookkeeping and accounting tasks, in addition to providing the financial information you need to make data-driven, strategically smart decisions for your company's future.

With the right mix of team and technology, you can build your company on top of a strong financial foundation.

To learn how your small or medium-sized business could benefit from shoring up your financial foundation with outsourced accounting and bookkeeping services, schedule a call with a GrowthForce representative today.

With more than 20 years of experience providing professional bookkeeping and accounting services to businesses like yours, our back office experts can help you eliminate the learning curve by setting up your back office right the first time. We will help you optimize your small business back office efficiency to improve operations, streamline technology and leverage financial information to accelerate your company's growth.