You can't always play defense

Run your SME like an American football team.

- Ken Brown

In American Football, your side comprises of two distinct line-ups: The “Offensive” and the “Defensive” positions. No side can succeed if they don’t have cover in both line-ups. We believe the same could be said for all small businesses.

For many small businesses, their accountant is the person they talk to when they need their financials sorted out or when the South African Revenue Services (SARS) comes knocking on their door.

We would argue that you should be turning your accountant into an attacking weapon, rather than to have them playing in a defensive role the whole time.

These are a few of practical examples of how you can make smarter use of your accounting support team:

Play to your strengths

How do you think you would fare against a 100kg professional athlete who spends every day in the gym focusing on being a great American Football player? Probably not particularly well, and the same lesson applies in business.

Many small business owners and entrepreneurs are generalists and try to be experts in multiple fields. In many cases, they are so eager to get any kind of deal that they under-price their product or service, or rush to accept poor payment terms. This results in them going out of business despite winning promising deals.