ACCOUNTING & FINANCIAL SERVICES
Athene Corporate Services can professionally satisfy any or all of your accounting needs, from basic bookkeeping to accounting to advanced financial management.
There is more to keeping your accounts than just presenting you with dry numbers.
A properly designed, well managed, and accurate accounting operation helps you measure the status and profitability of your business. It shows you how well you are doing and in what areas, where you need to concentrate your resources, and what aspects of your business you should focus on.
It is the basis of how you keep score.
It provides an early warning of impending cash flow issues, giving you time to take action to avoid a crisis rather than having to solve one.
“Profits are good. Cash is better.”
A good financial system generates ratios that let you measure the health of your company in comparison to other businesses in the same industry. It lets you easily find out how you are doing compared to your industry average.
It shows you what aspects of your business your banker is monitoring, so you will always know where you stand with the bank. Your banker may or may not understand your business. But it is critical that you understand your banker. A financial system operated by Athene will help you accomplish this.
It can even help you determine whether you need outside investment – and how much – or whether you can finance expansion with loans and your own profits.
The Athene Way™
When you hire Athene to do your books, you get unexpected extra value. At Athene we follow a formal methodology when we take over your accounting. Developed by and for our own use on your behalf, The Athene Way™ is a comprehensive framework that is backed up by carefully developed forms, templates, and computer systems. It ensures our work is performed to the highest standards at the lowest possible cost to you.
Click the picture to expand it, then click any item on the expanded picture for an explanation.
There is danger in very “cheap” solutions!
You cannot succeed in business if your books do not accurately reflect the state of your company.
Despite this, maintaining charts of accounts and entering daily transactions into an accounting system are hardly activities that make the best use of your time. But entrusting these critical activities to an outside book-keeper who may have little knowledge of your business could be a recipe for disaster.
Think of keeping score as a pyramid – simple bookkeeping
at the bottom, high-level financial services at the top.
Let Athene do the job properly!
With many bookkeepers, you are responsible for making sure your invoices are coded. They are typically entered into an accounting system on a weekly or monthly basis, so you very seldom have complete, up-to-date reports.
At Athene we either receive your mail or arrange to have your information picked up on a regular schedule, so our staff are able to code your invoices and enter them into our software as they are received. We provide you with all of the reports you require on a time-sensitive basis to keep your business running smoothly.
We also prepare vendor payments for you. We have cheques ready for you to sign at your convenience or, if you prefer, we sign and send the payment directly. We provide you with updated vendor listings.
We also handle invoicing and collections for your business in a professional manner, distancing you from the process. This allows you to maintain your relationship with your clients without entering the sometimes painful and damaging collection process.
Athene operates as an integral, seamless part of your company. We can handle your bank deposits, and we make sure your bank and other accounts are constantly reconciled. We will provide relevant expertise and services that allow you to focus on your core business while we 'run the business'. We provide you with the management information you need when you need it for decision making.
We can help you at the beginning.
If you are a new or very young business, the first thing you must do is define a chart of accounts.
While there are many accountants who can help you do this, they are just that – accountants. At Athene, we are not just qualified in accounting. We are also experienced entrepreneurs, so our assistance in setting up your chart of accounts goes beyond just fulfilling the legal, taxation, and accounting requirements.
We will also help you make sure that your financial system will give you:
- the information you need
- in the form you can best understand
- when and where you need it.
Each month we enter your data into our accounting system, coded either by you or by us, as you prefer. Then we present you with the reports you need in the format you need them – emailed to you as HTML documents that can be viewed using your normal web browser, in Excel format so that you can use them for forecasting purposes, or in a number of other formats. Or available to you on demand whenever you need them.
Your financial system can be as simple or as all-encompassing as you need. You can track your results by company, by division, or by project, in any combination. We can run payroll for you, complete with direct deposit. We can handle all your year-end processing and government remittances, automatically. You need never worry about forgetting a payment and being charged penalties or interest.
Our software
Our software is Sage Software Simply Accounting Professional. This is a full-featured, multi-functional, multi-user system. It provides all the power needed by small businesses without the complexity and overhead of systems targeted at large companies.
We have on staff a Simply Accounting Certified Consultant. This is someone who has successfully met Sage Software’s stringent qualification criteria, including advanced knowledge of accounting in general and Simply Accounting software in detail.
Your own Chief Financial Officer
All companies, big or small, need sound financial advice. Many small businesses simply cannot afford it. Instead, they end up getting financial guidance from someone who is not well qualified.
At Athene we have on staff an experienced CA who has been Chief Financial Officer in a number of small and mid-sized entrepreneurial companies. As an Athene client you have access to his knowledge and experience. He can be your part-time CFO. And you only pay for his services when you are using them.
What this means to you…
…is a level of accounting service for small business never before offered affordably in the Calgary area. Whether you are a one-person business or a company with 100 employees, Athene can handle your accounting needs.
- We perform basic bookkeeping services, accurately and economically.
- If you wish, we can add value by providing full accounting services, from setting up your chart of accounts to designing custom reports.
- We can provide you with the total range of financial services including cash flow projection, review of your accounts by our in-house accountants and Chartered Accountant, financial analysis, and ratio management.
- We have the technology and infrastructure to deliver accounting services to you competitively, economically, and electronically.
- Our fully trained employees use Canada’s best selling small business software to run your books. We have a Certified Consultant right here on staff.
- We treat your books as if they were our own.
