The Mistakes We See Most Often

The accounting profession is changing, and the businesses that benefit most are the ones whose accountant changes with it. At Seed Plus, that shift shows up in three areas we increasingly work in alongside our long standing tax and bookkeeping base.

The first is Virtual CFO style advisory support for medium businesses and not for profit organisations that need genuine financial leadership, board reporting packs, budget versus actual tracking, and cash flow forecasting, but cannot yet justify hiring a full time CFO. Volunteer treasurers running a sporting club or charity face this constantly, and so do growing businesses trying to professionalise their reporting.

The second is multiple entity and multiple state complexity. As businesses expand into new entities or new geographies, Single Touch Payroll, payroll tax, and consolidated group reporting all become harder to manage with a single entity mindset. This is exactly where a genuine business accountant earns their fee, by bringing structure to what has become complicated.

The third is greenhouse gas and carbon accounting. Australia’s mandatory climate related financial disclosure regime is phasing in for larger entities, and lenders, grant bodies, and members are increasingly asking about carbon footprints even before an organisation is legally required to report one. Seed Plus has undertaken GHG Protocol and Climate Active training to build genuine capability in this space, because we believe carbon reporting is becoming the next compliance frontier, not a passing trend. We are upfront that this is a capability we are actively building rather than a fully mature service line, but it reflects the direction the whole profession is heading.