What Questions To Ask When Looking For A CPA?
Tags: Accounting, Payroll, Taxation

Having a close, strong relationship with your Accounting firm is fundamental to small business owners. Accounting plays an important role in running a business as it helps with tracking income and expenditures, ensuring compliance, and providing owners with the financial information that is vital for making business decisions.

The right accounting firm means the difference between success and failure in your business. Not only it will save money and keep you compliant, but it will also provide focus and professional responsiveness from an advisor who is on your team all year long.

Hence it is essential to carefully question, do a background check, and set up an appointment before hiring a CPA. But before you meet your next CPA face to face, you need to make a list of questions that you should ask when you meet them.

These questions will help you evaluate and understand the possible CPA you intend to hire. Besides, you will have a clear picture of their work and will they be able to help you when you are stuck in a situation.

Let’s take a look at these questions.

Are you a legitimate CPA?

This should be your first question for them. Ask them whether they are licensed and have a Tax Identification Number. Also, ask them how long have they been certified as a CPA.

You should also enquire about their education, qualification, and experience. This will give you a good idea of whether they are professional or not.

Will they be available readily to serve you?

Even though in the era of the internet it is not essential to hire a local CPA, hiring one will have an added advantage. You can ask your accountant whether he will be able to come up to your place if you need to get some paperwork or speak to you virtually online.

Can he set up a meeting in urgency and provide any necessary documentation you need in the case of an emergency.

Make sure to consult a CPA who already has a good reputation in your area and is known for working legally.

How many and what types of clients do you work with?

This question will help you get an insight into their client base and the types of industry they have experienced in. You will know whether they are qualified enough to handle your business or not.

If you are not satisfied with the superficial answer you get. You can ask them to dive deeper into their client base. You can also ask them whether they have clients of the service sector, product base, or manufacturers.

These questions will help you analyze the experience and the industry type they are more experienced in handling.

Tell me about your tax background and specialty?

Similar to the question listed above, this question is also very probing.

This question when coupled with the previous one gives you a clear picture of the working background and specialty of the Certified Public Accountant.

Keep in mind that all the situation of every client’s tax is different and not all CPAs are the same and follow the same working procedure.

Some of the CPAs out there only specialize in simple W-2 taxation, some are proficient in international and foreign tax while others do well in co-corporate taxation.

This question will help you determine whether this CPA will be the right choice for your business. For instance, if you want to hire an accountant with experience in corporate tax, you will know that a CPA with experience only in W-2 Individuals will not be a good choice.

How will you ensure the security of my data and documents?

This is another important question to ask your accountant. Nowadays when security threats are looming everywhere, whether online or offline; it is essential to know what effects they will take to ensure the safety of your documents and other stats so that they do not get leaked accidentally.

All the data right from the one collected to pay the taxes to the employee’s payroll details should be in the safest of hands.

These are some of the most essential questions that will help you see a clearer picture of the CPA you are willing to hire. Once you’re done with the interview, you should ask yourself how the interview went and was to truly satisfied with the answers. Also, look at the bigger picture so that you do not run into any issues later on.

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