AIMS Accountants for Business
AIMS Accountants for Business
One thing that is often overlooked when starting your own business is the IT infrastructure. Sure, there are plenty of other things to think about, but robust IT systems are vital in this day and age if you want to provide an efficient service to your customers.
When you become an AIMS Accountant, this has already been thought of for you. You will benefit from IT processes that have been developed over 30 years with you and your customers in mind. This article will look at the AIMS IT infrastructure and the people driving it.
In 2022 it would almost be considered a crime if your business doesn’t use software. Businesses today use software to automate marketing and measure performance. They use software to keep in touch with customers and process their accounts. Software penetrates every aspect of a business and it is no different at AIMS Accountants.
The first rung of your IT systems ladder is an Office 365 account. Businesses will usually use a third-party to do this, and it can be costly. However, we do it for you to ensure that you have an operational email account immediately.
Moreover, the IT team at AIMS have designed a slick and easy-to-use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for all AIMS Accountants to use. This in-house software enables you to effectively keep in touch with your customers. Let’s say that you’ve just completed some work for a customer and you want to request a review. Well, you can do this automatically through the AIMS CRM. You can also use the CRM to send templated emails and documents to your customers when you need some information from them as well as engagement letters
This CRM also integrates with Microsoft SharePoint to give you a really easy filing process. Important documents are retained for you for the statutory period of 7 years. We also backup these files automatically around 6 times per day so that you never lose anything important.
All of these things were designed to make your life easier and to enable you to focus on growing your business and making your customers happy.
It’s not just CRMs that are important for the day to day running of your business. It is also vital that you use accounting and bookkeeping software to run your business properly.
Accounting software is something that you would use for accounts production and compliance processes. Proper accounts management is key to make sure that you are fully compliant with HMRC’s tax regulations. As such, we have negotiated preferential rates with Digita which is software produced by Thomson Reuters. Digita will enable you to create compliant final accounts to file online with Companies House and it will also enable you to manage personal tax and corporation tax. We have designed a perfect starter package with Digita and provide training to make sure that you are fully up to speed before winning your first client. As an AIMS Accountant, we do insist that you use Digita so you can find their informational brochure here.
You can’t have robust IT systems or businesses without bookkeeping software. Bookkeeping software is used to record financial transactions. Tracking this information for clients is vital in helping them make key financial decisions. Proper bookkeeping gives companies a reliable measure of their performance. It also provides information to make general strategic decisions and a benchmark for its revenue and income goals. In short, once a business is up and running, spending extra time and money on maintaining proper records is critical. As such, we have negotiated preferential rates with most of the household names in bookkeeping software. We don’t insist that you use one or the other, but here are some that you might have heard:
In a previous article, we looked at everything that you need to know about your support accountants at AIMS. All AIMS Accountants have a dedicated support accountant to help them run their businesses. These support accountants are also proficient in Digita and in all of the aforementioned bookkeeping software. This will give you peace of mind, knowing that if you are having issues with your software, you can ask your support accountant for help!
What’s more, our central IT team are real people, here to help you. This means that you can email them or call them whenever you have an issue. They are available via phone and if they can’t help you immediately, they will aim to get back to you in less than 24 hours.
At the beginning of your journey with AIMS, we’ll complete a quick assessment of your IT skills to ensure that you are given the necessary training and support early on. The IT team will also suggest machines for you to buy with their expert experience and knowledge. If your machine was to break, the AIMS IT infrastructure is such that so that you can be fully set up on an alternative machine within 24 hours! This way, you’ll never lose any business and your customers won’t get penalised.
While we do define robust IT systems for you, they’re unobtrusive and easy and this has benefits when you want to retire and sell your book of clients. If your systems and documentation are fully in order, when you come to sell, you’ll get as close to 100% of the value of your business as possible. Without these things in order, other accountants will not want to buy your business because of the risk that it would take them too long sorting out the administration to make it worthwhile!
If you want to discuss becoming an AIMS Accountant, please call James today on 020 7616 6622 or visit our website here!