It's not uncommon for us to interact with seasonal businesses since we tend to spend a lot of time involved with the outdoor community.
I'm not saying seasonal bookkeeping only occurs with outdoor enthusiasts that happen to own a business, but a majority of the owners we work with are. Your business could be a winter photographer, a summer rafting company, landscaper, or basically anything that operates based on certain weather conditions.
There are many benefits of owning a seasonal company, but there are also a few downsides. One downside may be trying to cram a full year of revenue generating work into 6 months or less. When this happens it's quite common to ignore your bookkeeping and next thing you know your bookkeeping has fallen behind.
Hire A Bookkeeper
This is the easiest solution for a business owner that works 15+ hour days for 6 months and then takes a month or two to decompress after their season is over. I've found that it's not too realistic for a small business owner to dedicate the time needed to properly handle the books during the whirl wind that is their busy season.
I feel the idea that 'I'll get to it after the season is over' is scary and usually untrue. The first thing that happens after the season ends is a vacation, and while the vacation is a must, a lot of info that is in the owner's head disappears.
After the vacation is over, bookkeeping tasks are usually forgotten, let alone details of certain transactions that occurred 5 months ago. Having a bookkeeper handle the tracking of your finances can lead to a ton of benefits such as accurate timely financial reporting, cash flow management year round, employee theft monitoring, and the list goes on and on.
Have A Grasp On Your Year Round Cash Flow
Nothing is worse for a business owner than having the bank account go dry, especially if revenue only flows for a few solid months out of the year. The best way to prevent this from happening is to understand your cash flow.
Having us as your bookkeeping has its added bonuses since we have strong experience preparing for lean cash flow months. The scramble during the busy months can lead to a lot of stress if the proper amount of money isn't socked away. Loans and Lines Of Credits can take a serious toll on your bank accounts year round since they usually need to be paid on a consistent monthly schedule.
Same goes for credit card balances and possibly private investors. Defaulting on payments can truly ruin your business so it makes sense to be prepared well in advance.
We Will Work With You To Help Cash Flow
It's not uncommon for us to get paid as bookkeepers in large chunks part of the year knowing that the negative cash flow is right around the corner. Some businesses need a year round bookkeeper but want to pay an annual rate in a short period.
A landscaping business may want to pay us during the summer months for an entire year's worth of service while a ski boot fitter may want to pay only during the winter for year-round service. Once we understand your system, we customize our system to really help the small seasonal business owner.
Given our seasonal experience that started in the Utah ski industry, we understand that seasonal businesses can have a real stressful part of the year followed by several months of quite time.
Hire a bookkeeper and make sure any of your hard earned money is being properly accounted for in a highly efficient manner. Reach out to learn more, it's worth it.
