Want to get insurance for a small business? Learn why Blueprint Accounting chooses us!
One of the questions we hear most frequently is “How much does insurance cost for a small business?” Because every ALIGNED insurance broker is also owner, they are very aware of how much Canadian small business owners count on a direct answer to this important question.
When partners Sean Duffy and Brian Clare were looking to insure their start-up Blueprint Accounting, they asked ALIGNED CEO and president Andrew Clark “How much does insurance cost for a small business?”
As small business owners, Sean, Brian and Andrew have a lot in common. They each understand the pressure of building a successful small business – as well as the day-to-day small yet meaningful decisions that build long-term sustainability.
Common Accounting Worries That Small Business Owners Face
Because entrepreneurs often face similar challenges, we asked Brian Clare, MBA, CPA, CMA,
“What accounting worries are keeping Canadian small business owners up at night?”
Brian shared: “At the end of the day, the biggest worry is always cash flow. Can they pay their employees, vendors, whoever? Can they receive cash for services or products sold in a timely fashion? What are they projecting for expenses and income and the timing of receipt and payment of cash? It’s as simple as if you don’t have cash, how will you survive as a business?”
He continued and noted that cost increases are another major concern for small business, specifically that:
- “Business owners believe they can sell enough to cover costs;
- But if their costs keep increasing (which shrinks margins) then they wonder where can they become more efficient and effective with their costs so margins don’t shrink;
- Should we increase prices on our products or services?”
How Blueprint Accounting Solves Key Cash And Cost Worries
Blueprint Accounting partner Sean Duffy, CPA, CMA, chimed in and noted that, “To try to solve these worries, we like to see what type of costs have been increasing and work with owners to try to curb that and bring costs back down to respectable levels…(for instance) are there better inventory management techniques the owner could use? Are their bank fees too high? If they’re making a product internally, would it make sense to outsource this to reduce costs?
Increases in costs; decreases in revenues; or the opposites; they all feed into cash flow management, which is why we know cash flow is the #1 worry for Canadian small business owners.”
Sean and Brian created Blueprint Accounting because they want to help small and medium-sized businesses get the advice and help they need to prosper – they want to be a part of their success story.
Each and every day, the Blueprint Accounting team helps business owners understand their blueprint to success through collaboration, technology utilization and financial understanding.
Why Blueprint Accounting Decided to Get ALIGNED
When Sean and Brian were looking to get insurance for their small business, ALIGNED was their first call. Brian shared, “Andrew Clark was a guest speaker during my MBA for a Risk Management course. He exudes confidence, is a very knowledgeable professional and took the time to answer our questions, advise us on business best practices.
Most importantly, Andrew understands who we are as a nascent accounting firm – and offered us a great insurance product. We did our due diligence with other businesses and chose ALIGNED because of the excellent customer service we received before we even signed on.”
Across Canada, it’s the people of ALIGNED who stand out. Sean advised, “We work directly with Ana Alberto, CIP, CRM and she’s super attentive to our questions when we have any.
She links us to documents to follow up on and even apologizes if she feels she hasn’t responded soon enough (might be a Canadian politeness thing, but also we never feel like it’s been too long).”
Small Business Expertise Is Why We’ve ALIGNED With Blueprint Accounting
We appreciate the value of collaborative relationships as well as the generousity of clients who refer us to others. On that note, we also asked Brian, “Why are small businesses choosing Blueprint Accounting?”
He responded, “Our golden rule is: “Respond within 3 hours”. Even if it’s only to say we saw your message and are looking into it. We think our clients really enjoy that.
We’ve seen accountants and bookkeepers get classified into 2 types: “cubicle accountants” vs “customer accountants”. There’s nothing wrong with being a “cubicle accountant”, but we really believe in order to succeed you need to be engaging with your customers often and making their lives easier.
So we view ourselves as “customer accountants” in that we want to have those tough conversations with you because we know it adds a ton of value by helping you solve your problems and relieve that anxiety that causing you to worry about your business. Accountants and bookkeepers are having to move towards being advisors rather than data-entry clerks.
Beyond client engagement: accounting is moving very heavily towards cloud accounting platforms. Almost every aspect of our work can be done online through an app or software platform. One of our offerings is Systems Integrations. We pride ourselves on being able to setup the right system, to do the right thing, at the right time.”
Why Do You Recommend ALIGNED Insurance To Others?
And last but not least, we asked why the partners recommend us to the small to medium-sized Canadian companies they serve.
“For us, it always comes back to the customer-centric style and trust that we have with ALIGNED’s products and employees. Similar to my last answer, knowing that we feel secure and cared for makes a huge difference. If we didn’t feel this way, we wouldn’t recommend ALIGNED. But we do feel this, so ALIGNED is always top-of-mind for insurance recommendations.” Shared Brian Clare, MBA, CPA, CMA, partner, Blueprint Accounting.
How To Contact Blueprint Accounting
Blueprint Accounting provides cloud accounting, systems integrations, training and education to help you build your accounting blueprint. To learn more, you can visit experienceyourblueprint.com; contact Brian Clare at brian@experienceyourblueprint.com or Sean Duffy at sean@experienceyourblueprint.com.
