How financial literacy can grow your business

AUTHOR:

Understanding how money works – and how to make it work more effectively – can transform your bottom line. Seeing how money flows and changes value over time gives insights that support decision-making for your business.

As accountants and bookkeepers, we helped Grand Floors see money strategically, the way they see flooring; working and flowing from room to room to create something more valuable than just the total of the pieces.

After a robust marketing campaign, Grand Floors had been enjoying annual double-digit growth. As the Simcoe County company turned 30 last year, the owners realized they needed a financial strategy that was just as effective as the marketing strategy.

At Mason Miller, we begin by giving business owners permission to step away from their business to focus on the numbers. We held several one-on-one, high-level meetings with the Grand Floors owner and in-house bookkeeper in our boardroom, rather than at their site, to empower them to assess the numbers without being interrupted or distracted by their daily business.

“We thought we had a reliable and consistent in-house bookkeeping program for the past 20 years,” said Grand Floors’ Gregory Olszewski, who in 2015, after just a year of higher annual growth began, realized the bookkeeping program needed more than just a polish.

“We tried several firms and consultants, that in the end, could not produce a streamlined process for keeping our in-house data entry and bookkeeping staff on track and accountable,” he said.

Staff struggled with ongoing processes including tax filing, payroll remittances, monthly profit and loss reporting, expense classification and sales commission.

Olszewski realized his in-house process and its external year-end tax firm had been missing the mark for over two decades. Over six months, the Mason Miller team implemented a new, customized financial system based on a system of checklists, processes and checks and balances.

“It took time for us to get things cleaned up after that, but we are in much better shape. Mason Miller continues to oversee the process and spot checks the systems we have implemented,” said Olszewski.

If you need help becoming more financially literate, let Mason Miller help you create a customized financial system for your business. Contact Heather & Kim today!

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