Reporting on business health requires analysis of past, present and future activities. Many accountants and bookkeepers get often called in to provide some guidance as to bring clarity to the business’ snapshot as of today.
Doing an in-depth analysis, is not always easy considering how complex a business can be. Particularly, if it involves a range of entities to minimise risk and tax, So, this often results in some heavyweight reporting requirements. Calxa accepts the challenge to provide the reporting power a serious elite accounting athlete needs.
Reporting for Business – all in the one Solution
With the introduction of standard financial statements such as ‘Profit & Loss’ & ‘Balance Sheet’ into the Calxa reporting engine, taking snap shots of past, present and future is easily available all within the one solution. Add to this, features such as report bundling, multiple file consolidation, KPI reporting and you have some serious muscle.
Consider three of the most common questions asked of accounting professionals by their clients;
- Where is the profit, if we have no money?
- How much tax am I going to have to pay?
- What is my bank balance going to be?
Profit Yes, Money No
Point 1 can be answered by providing the following three reports:
- A Balance Sheet
- A Profit & Loss Statement
- And, a Where Did Our Money Go Report.
The Balance Sheet will show them their current position as at a point in time, whilst the Profit & Loss Statement will show how they got there. The Where Did Our Money Go Report explains the relationship between these two reports and how it relates to their current cash on hand position.
Together these three reports address the past and present point of the business. It is important to take stock of what has happened and identify things that went right and went wrong.
Estimated Profit Position
The answers to the second question is made up of:
A Spreadsheet Profit & Loss using a combination of current year actuals and forecasts based on prior year actuals as a basis for providing a current year profit forecast.
This report will then provide you with an ‘Estimated Profit Position’. This can then be used to calculate potential future tax liabilities.
Identifying the Cash Position
Whilst question number 3 can be answered by featuring:
A Cashflow Forecast based on Profit & Loss & Balance Sheet budgets.
This firstly incorporates important criteria such the timing of payments and receipts. Secondly, it includes the timing of other influencing factors such as GST/VAT & superannuation payments, capital acquisitions, loan draw-downs and repayments and private drawings. An overdraft facility can also be included in this report to provide a forecast of ‘available funds’.
To get started with projections, have a look at What is a Cash Flow Forecast article.
Providing Guidance to your Clients
The Cashflow Forecast, together with the ‘Estimated Profit Position’ (Spreadsheet Profit & Loss) answer questions relating to future tax liabilities and future working capital requirements. Being able to answer and provide guidance to your client on their questions such as:
- How much tax they are going to have to pay
- Or, how much money will be in the bank
For your clients that are having a growth spurt, cash flow becomes even more important. Have a look at How to Manage your Cashflow for Growth article for some suggestions. This will ensure that you are at the top of their Christmas card list!
All of these reports and charts can be delivered directly from your Calxa Software, bundled together in a single format. And, updating these reports and delivering to your client on a monthly or quarterly basis, is as simple as a couple of clicks, within a couple of minutes. Or, why not just set up some workflows to trigger this regular job?
Serious Muscle for Heavy-lifting
Integrating with major accounting applications and the ability for these reports to be customised with corporate colours and branding, turns into serious muscle to do some heavyweight reporting. Something that all elite accounting athletes need.
Note: No banned supplements have been used in the creation of these reports.