Accountants and Bookkeepers already understand the huge impact that foreign currency and exchange rates have on the bottom line, but translating this to business owners to effect change is a common challenge. There are many hurdles to get over including how to present the facts simply and effectively, but as inflation continues to rise globally, it’s never been more of a priority to know where savings can be made and fast.
Our eBook, Evolving and Increasing Value: Introducing Smart International Payments and FX for Accountants and Bookkeepers, looks at:
Source: Xero
Accountants and Bookkeepers have long been one of the most trusted personnel within a business, being privy to sensitive financial data like expense accounts, profit and loss sheets, and investments.
Today, these roles have evolved in line with a business’ strategy and the changing economic environment as greater industry expertise is needed and more advanced technology is available.
Looking at the two roles:
Accountants are more akin to business advisors to their clients today. With new technology and data, they translate the changing regulatory and socio-political landscape to their clients, while simultaneously understanding its application to every client’s specific business.
Bookkeepers, armed with technology, have highly upskilled moving from basic data entry to holistic financial data management as they access all accounting data and need to know where it’s come from, the security of it, and its integrity.
With more international business and trade than ever, these two roles now deal with and see the costs and income of international invoices frequently and understand how these translate into a business’ margins and accounts. It’s just not that easy to relay the findings or areas of improvement as a priority and here’s why.
Because of the rise in international business, there are many currency providers and international payments providers to choose from - an overwhelming amount in fact. Every one offers faster, cheaper and better payments than the next one, which means either having to throw caution to the wind or putting in the time and effort to trial each one.
Accountants and Bookkeepers are incredibly time poor and often already have a hefty to do list. So despite knowing that implementing stronger, more strategic foreign currency management into the process would be beneficial, getting the necessary processes and tools in place means needing to find more time from an already short supply.
To add to this, business owners are equally stretched for time and in need of the currency impact education piece, but how do accountants get their attention?
For most, paying an international invoice is no different to paying a local one - it’s received and on or near the due date, it’s paid via a bank transaction. While this works for domestic invoices, foreign invoices require more planning in order to get the best value and lowest costs. This method offers no insights into fluctuating costs as a result of inflation and changing rates, and therefore very little to go off of in order to improve the process.
The economic climate is in an increasingly precarious and volatile state, which is affecting the cost of business globally. The rate of inflation is soaring as are interest rates, and together they are the main cause in currency fluctuations thereby affecting any international invoices a business receives.
Not only can stronger currency management help to lower costs of international invoices for SME clients, it also enables stronger buying power for the business owner and the opportunity to maintain or grow their market share.
Offering this service provides Accountants and Bookkeepers with a truly valuable offering that can elevate their brand, while showing a niche that is highly in demand as the economy continues to change and the world craves more predictability and consistency.
In addition, implementing an international payments service that uniquely offers payments visibility, insights and new, more strategic methods opens up the possibility of an additional revenue stream for the Accountant. Modern business owners know that expertise plus data-driven software is the key to being competitive and are willing to pay for this.
Our ebook, Evolving and Increasing Value: Introducing Smart International Payments and FX for Accountants and Bookkeepers, dives into this entire topic in far more detail including the different ways to implement the new service offering and how to make it work for you and your clients.
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