This week saw KPMG launch its Finance Plus cloud accounting product targeted at small to medium sized businesses (SMBs). It will help them to handle bookkeeping and financial reporting within the safety and convenience of the cloud. All that they update will be checked for correctness by an experienced KPMG virtual accountant. This accounting professional will be further backed by a team of trusted business advisors.
The specific services offered by Finance Plus include daily transactions, digitised bookkeeping, payroll management, accounts payable and receivables, budgeting, management reporting, bank reconciliations, and tax compliance. It allows business owners to outsource their accounting needs to KPMG, leaving them more free time to focus on their core business.
KPMG confirmed that at tax time, SMBs accounts would interface with local KPMG locations to facilitate the preparation of end year statements and complete tax returns. Many business owners find the tax season to be stressful given the amount of legal and compliance documents to be filed. With finance teams able to connect with local KPMG tax teams, it will be easier to streamline the process through the centralized platform.
This launch is in keeping with KPMG’s aims of helping entrepreneurs focus on areas that will impact and grow their businesses. According to KPMG Ottawa’s office managing partner, Andrew Newman, the firm had a strong understanding of what businesses needed to be successful at each stage, and the opportunities and challenges they would face.
This is good news for many SMBs as it will see them have easier access to accounting, tax, and advisory services. A recent survey found that many Canadian business owners tended to overestimate their financial literacy. In the 18-34-year-old age group, 62% considered themselves financially literate but scored a ‘D’ grade in testing. A KPMG survey also found that an estimated 88% of Canadian SMBs had suffered economically during the pandemic and struggled through lockdowns.
KPMG Enterprise’s National Leader, Mary Jo Fedy, said that businesses that were shifting to digital were better placed to succeed and that affordable technology that helped businesses to more accurately gauge their health in real-time was needed. She added that Finance Plus was one such technology capable of providing valuable insights and data that would drive efficiencies and possible cost savings.
Finance Plus is designed to affordably assist businesses that lack time and in-house accounting expertise to meet their bookkeeping and financial reporting needs. It provides access to a suite of software tools including Xero, Hubdoc, QuickBooks Online, ADP, and Wagepoint.