What separates Cycle CPA from the more than 88,000 accounting firms in the country? The key difference is that we specialize in serving the Green Industry. This includes companies that provide lawn care, lawn maintenance, landscape design, hardscaping, landscaping, outdoor lighting, tree services, irrigation, nurseries, and more. Here’s what it means for Cycle CPA to be Green Industry “specialized”:
Managerial Accounting vs. Tax Accounting
Most CPA firms focus solely on tax season and ignore managerial accounting techniques. Managerial accounting focuses on providing information and analysis to help internal management make informed business decisions. Its primary goal is to assist management in planning, directing, and controlling operations.
Tax accounting deals specifically with preparing and filing tax returns and ensuring compliance with tax laws and regulations imposed by government authorities. This involves calculating taxable income, determining tax liabilities, applying tax credits and deductions, and ensuring compliance with tax laws at the local, state, and federal levels.
It’s important to focus on both managerial and tax accounting. An example to highlight this is looking into tax depreciation vs. book depreciation. Evaluating certain metrics solely based on the tax perspective may not give you insight into the performance and operational perspective of the company. Tax depreciation is determined by tax regulations and may differ from book depreciation methods. Tax depreciation rules often allow for accelerated depreciation methods or special deductions to incentivize investment in certain assets or industries. While tax depreciation can provide tax savings in the short term, it may not accurately reflect the economic reality of asset usage and value over time. Book depreciation in managerial accounting is calculated based on the estimated useful life of assets and their residual value. Book depreciation aims to allocate the cost of assets over their useful lives to match expenses with revenue recognition principles, providing a more accurate representation of the asset’s economic value over time.
Benchmarking
Before you know where your company is going and the target to reach, you first need to get clarity into what the baseline for that given metric is. Benchmarking your numbers to Green Industry averages helps to show you where the company is performing best and the areas within your business that need improvement. When a CPA firm works with multiple industries, they don’t have the internal data and benchmarking capabilities to make this possible.
CycleScape Reporting ™
If there are 20 financial metrics to focus on, what would they be for a Green Industry business? No need to wonder any more. Our custom financial reports are built specifically for the Green Industry. From field labor efficiency, seasonal cash flow metrics, making smart equipment & vehicle purchases, controlling debt, and much more. Simply viewing your accounting software financial statements or your bank balance at the end of a period is no longer enough!
Familiarity with Green Industry Software’s
Do you utilize or are you planning to utilize a Green Industry software that syncs or is used in conjunction with QuickBooks? Whether you are looking for help with the Aspire month-end close process, keeping up with an accurate budget in SynkedUP or LMN, or ensuring the sync and financial data is clear with programs like Service Autopilot, SingleOps, HindSite Software, Jobber, Yardbook, etc. At Cycle CPA we have many clients using all of the common Green Industry Software’s!
We Know What to Watch Out For
Although we work specifically with companies in the green industry, we are more broad with the sizes of companies we work with. We understand the challenges of scaling a business and have experience working with companies at all stages of growth. This allows us to take a proactive approach in our advisory meetings. There are many common pain points and issues companies face when growing, and we can help you plan around them!
Green Industry Business Models and Cash Flow Forecasting
Within the Green Industry, there are multiple types of business models. Understanding how your company functions from a profitability and cash flow perspective is key to maintaining financial stability. As an example, Install-based companies have different working capital requirements than recurring maintenance. On top of this, many companies in the Green Industry throughout the country are seasonal. With a seasonal business, it’s important to budget and forecast cash for a yearly period. It’s not just about making a profit in the busy season, but it’s equally as important to cover fixed costs and manage cash flow in the off-season.
Frequency of Reports and Support
Most general CPA firms revolve their operations around tax season, and during that time everything else gets put aside. At Cycle CPA, our accounting and tax services are separated into two different departments. This ensures that our clients receive their financial reports on a monthly basis, regardless of the time of year. The quicker you receive the reporting, the quicker you can take action and improve the financial health of your company!
Do you go to a heart surgeon if you have a foot injury? Do customers go to a hardscaping company for commercial maintenance needs? It’s time to get a specialized approach to your accounting needs too!