Accountability Edinburgh

At Accountability Edinburgh we have a team of 17. That’s 12 people in our Virtual Finance teams. We also have around 60 clients currently. Doing the maths - that means that every one of our clients gets dedicated time from our qualified team weekly.

Every client has at least 2 of our team dedicated to work on your business. They get to know you, your business - and as you grow, we have the infrastructure to support you.

We’ve also got a payroll team of 3 people. So you get an experienced, qualified team with time ring-fenced to deliver your work.

The team will be talking with you regularly - making sure you’re getting the insights you need and keeping you on track with your goals - and your compliance deadlines.

Every three months, we spend a bit of extra time with you - checking in on your goals, reviewing what we’re doing - and to make sure you’ve got your systems automated and optimised as far as possible.

We started working this way in 2012. Way before every second accounting firm hopped on the virtual finance bus! We’re good at what we do - which is why we have exceptional retention rates and multiple national awards for our work.

If you think you could benefit from a team with a different, personalised approach built in - then drop us a message and we can schedule a quick call.

Do you feel frustrated that the numbers in Xero just don't make sense?

How can I customise Xero so it suits me and my business?

What features can I use to POWER UP my bookkeeping?

A recent report showed that 2 in 5 business owners don't know if they are making a profit. At Accountability Edinburgh, we're on a mission to change that!

Running a small business is HARD enough - so getting the financial insights you need can't be time-consuming or need 17 spreadsheets.

In this three week mini-series of webinars, Rosie will talk through each of the areas in Xero, outline brilliant features, great use cases and share some hints and tips of the trade.

Comment or DM us "Xero" to get the booking link 📩

What does it cost for us to help you with your e-Commerce set up?

The truth is - it’s probably more than you think - but less than it's worth. Let me explain.

There's likely to be an initial bit of consultation. To get this right for YOU and for YOUR BUSINESS - then we need to spend time talking. What income streams are important, what numbers do you want to know? What territories are you selling in? How are you segmenting customers? What sales channels are you using?

It goes on - is there remedial work? Is your VAT set up correctly? Do you have historic data that needs to be reconciled? Do you have a reliable stock number? How far through your financial year are you?

Then - what do you want to do with the numbers you get? What reporting do you need? How often? Who is going to do the bookkeeping work? Do we need to train you or your team - or do you want us to do it? Do you want to overlay any other metrics you use in your business?

Some businesses are really straight-forward. Sales on just one platform - figures are pretty good but reliant on manual processes - and the real job is to automate from here. We don't need to do additional reporting and no change is required to Xero. We would charge that at £875.00 + VAT for the initial consultation, completing a straight-forward set up and giving you some training about how it works. We can also provide a fee proposal for helping to manage it on an ongoing basis.

If it's a more complex set-up - and I'm thinking, multiple channels, months of data to correct, more complex VAT arrangements, costs of goods to be considered - the fee could move to more like £3,000 + VAT

We don't quote until we've talked with you - looked at Xero and established what's involved. If it's straight-forward we'll let you know. The fees I'm quoting here are indicative - because it's useful to have guidance about what you may be in for.

Picture of Justis and Heather at Xerocon 🤓

If you're running an e-commerce business and your Xero is a disaster - this post is for you.

The truth is - the default version of Xero isn't set up out of the box for e-commerce businesses. As a virtual finance service specialising in digital transformation and sorting out messy numbers - here's what we know.

You're selling on Shopify, Amazon, Etsy or TikTok. You make sales to customers - but built in to that sales income is the cost of stock, discounts, gift cards, VAT, shipping and then there's returns. If you're relying on coding the income at your bank to sales - your data is letting you down.

- You're not building in the opportunity to analyse sales by channel, stock type or customer segment.

- You're not accurately reflecting the impact of refunds or discounts

- Your VAT is likely to be incorrect

- You probably don't have a good picture of what SKUs are actually delivering what level of profit.

There is another way. We've delivered set-ups for our e-commerce clients that automate these numbers into Xero, customised Xero so it FITS your actual business - and then built custom reports to tell you the information you need to know.

We also recommend that there's a monthly reconciliation to check it's all working smoothly, but we're accountants - and we like a control 😉

- No more guessing about your stock figures

- No more crossing your fingers and hoping the VAT is right

- No more ploughing through your sales reports from various platforms wondering what product line / type is delivering the best profit.

Insights delivered.

Should bookkeepers fear the rise of the robots? 🤔

With non-stop news of AI automations, bookkeepers are facing an identity crisis. Rosie wants to share how she turned fear into purpose.

And without giving the game away – Rosie has been on a bit of a journey with AI. She’ll be sharing insights, concerns - and her (current) plan.

Xerocon Day 2
12-12:30pm
Partner & Community Stage

Keep an eye out for a blog post afterwards – we’ll be sharing Rosie’s presentation on our website!

I already use Xero, and it gives me all the reports I need. Why add another tool?

Your accounting software shows the numbers.

Management reporting tools help you understand and act on them, faster, clearer, and with more insight.

Mina runs a small but growing architecture studio. She uses Xero for invoicing and bank reconciliation. From time to time, she looks at her profit and loss report and believes as long as she’s invoicing regularly and the bank balances look healthy, then she’s doing fine. Things seem okay, until:

❓ She considered investing £6k in a new service line
❓ A key client asked for a 15% discount
❓ She wasn't sure how fully her team was being utilised

Mina wanted to make the right decisions, but all she had was the standard P&L reports which only showed the past. Not the impact of potential changes.

After discussing with her bookkeeper, they introduced Fathom, a reporting tool that integrates directly with Xero. Now, Mina receives clear, visual, and customised reports that help her make better decisions.

By using Fathom Reports, Mina was able to:

📈 Track project profitability
📈 Forecast the impact of big spends and new investments
📈 Measure custom KPIs, such as Staff Utilisation
📈 Model pricing scenarios before saying yes to discounts

Would you like to see what custom management reporting could look like for your business? At Accountability Edinburgh, we offer bespoke Management Reports using Fathom. Email us on [email protected] and one of our team members will be happy to help 😊

📸 Picture from our Team Day last year in our fabulous meeting space. We've just received the pics in from this year's Team Day and can't wait to share with you all 🤩

We know several firms who also offer a health check service - and this has led to some confusion recently.

🩺 One client recently told us that they'd had a health check. It cost them £000s and they'd found it wasn't beneficial at all.

💰 Another told us that they'd seen a far cheaper health check than ours. We’ve checked online and right enough - it promises a huge amount of value - for less than £100 ⁉️ We’re sorry - but our professional scepticism has kicked in. Either that firm doesn't know how to price - or the service they're offering isn't personalised advice.

If we’re finding it confusing - it must be incredibly hard for business owners.

So – we thought we’d outline our offering - being very clear about what happens:

1. We'll meet with you for around 4 hours. We spend that time getting to know your business, the frustrations you have with it and where you want to get to. We'll ask you to talk us through what you are doing and using to manage your finances. We'll ask you about what works well - and what is not.

2. We'll spend some time looking through your accounts. We'll run through a 113 point review process which we have developed after having been through this process A LOT! The framework is designed for us to check key numbers, assess the health of your financial reporting - and review how everything is working.

We'll also look at your financial policies (if you have them), your reporting - and how meaningful these are, given what you've said about where you want to get to.

3. We'll send you a report that outlines our findings, our recommendations - and a suggested plan of action. Sometimes our recommendations are easy quick-wins, sometimes they may mean integrating a bit of software (or fixing an integration) - and sometimes it may mean a bit of work. Potentially re-coding to create analysis you need for example.

4. Finally - we'll meet to follow up on that report - and discuss your next steps. We'll be honest and pragmatic in our findings - as our aim is to make sure you're getting the absolute most out of your reports so you can run your business in the way you want to.

The fee for this service is £950 + VAT. It's payable in advance (a lesson learned) and that's it.

If you want us to help you with anything we identify then we'll give you a fee proposal for that - but equally - you could also take that to your current accountant or bookkeeper and ask them to help you - or where we think you could do it yourself - we will tell you that.

This isn't the only way you can work with the team at Accountability Edinburgh - but if you're thinking of taking on a virtual finance team - it's also a great way to see our approach. 😜

Picture is totally unrelated - but it's and we wanted to share this photo of the team at Portobello beach this time last year 🏖️