3 Reasons Food Entrepreneurs Can Leverage Outsourced Accounting Teams

There's a lot to figure out when starting a business and often, entrepreneurs aren't sure what to spend money on. Bookkeeping? Marketing? Sales? Employees? As an outsourced bookkeeping and accounting firm, we will be the first to tell you that it often isn't bookkeeping. We recommend you spend money honing your products and developing your brand. But fear not, the need for bookkeeping and accounting support will come. We promise.

Let's say you're a food entrepreneur making gourmet popcorn. As the business grows, you might have conversations with a distributor who wants to carry your product. You may consider a co-packer to take over raw materials sourcing and manufacturing. Perhaps you’ll look at commercial kitchen space to manufacture popcorn on a larger scale. Not sure what’s best for your business? Then it might be time to partner with an outsourced accounting firm. While growing a business is exciting, it can be challenging and stressful if you haven't done it before. How can an outsourced accounting firm help your business? Here are three strategic ways an outsourced accounting team like Accountfully can help you scale your food business:

Sales Channels Analysis:

• Many food entrepreneurs sell their products via multiple sales channels. Because of this, it's important they understand what channels are most profitable. Accountfully performs monthly margin analysis to see which products are selling on which channels. Using real data rather than gut feelings, food entrepreneurs can use this information to make important pricing decisions.

Syncing Inventory and Sales:

• Regardless of the number of channels you sell on, keeping up-to-date inventory counts is a mandatory part of running a product-based business. But good new—an outsourced accounting team can help you with this. Accountfully makes sure inventory and associated costs are integrated with bookkeeping systems. When a sale goes through, it’s deducted from the inventory count in real-time–we often use an inventory management system called Dear Inventory. This sheds light on the in-house inventory and raw materials that will need to be ordered.

Scaling Your Business:

• Making decisions about product distribution can be stressful. Business owners worry about things like commissions, broker fees, trade spend, and merchant charge backs. When working with an outsourced accounting firm like Accountfully, you can rest assured that sales are properly coded and chargebacks are valid before they're paid.

Running a business isn’t easy but it’s a lot easier when you work with a team that can support you in your growth. Accountfully works with food entrepreneurs who want to scale their business. As a team, we go beyond reconciling accounts and closing books at the end of the month. We collaborate and engage with our clients. Our end goal is to help them make sense of their numbers so they can make decisions that will positively impact their business.