Why Your Small Business Needs an Accountant/Bookkeeper
By: Marianna Guzic
Tags: Accounting, Small Business

Why Your Small Business Needs an Accountant/Bookkeeper

For anyone who has started their own business, you know what it takes to get it up and running.

Hours of research, prep work, design, goals.

All to make sure your day-to-day operations run smoothly.

Then finding clients or customers who will benefit from and use your product or service.

All of this takes time and effort, and potentially a money investment.

Ok, now that that’s all set and up and running, it’s time to really get into the business and run EVERYTHING on the back end. Wow sounds daunting and exhausting.

As your business grows, you just can’t handle all the work on your own. That’s when it’s time to allocate and hire other people to help lighten your load. This will allow you to focus on what’s important, your actual business and day to day operations rather than all the extra busy work that comes with it.

One of the very important people you need to consider hiring is a bookkeeper or accountant. This is one of those business processes that needs to be done accurately, but if you don’t have the time or the full knowledge of how it works, in the end it can cause major issues when everyone’s favorite season comes around — tax season.

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Who is an accountant or bookkeeper and what is the difference?

A bookkeeper…

is someone who records day-to-day financial transactions. These include invoices, payments, receipts, sales, bills. They make sure your bank statement says the same thing as your company’s “books”. They can perform payroll and other small tasks that involve making sure all transactions made by your business are properly identified and recorded.

An accountant…

on the other hand, usually looks at your company’s financials from a big picture perspective. They can also perform bookkeeping duties, but most are typically stereotyped for performing audits of a company’s books and preparing tax returns. Accountants do a lot of financial analysis on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. Some can also help decide what type of business entity best suits your needs.

Which ever one you choose is up to you, depending on what your specific business needs are. Accounting firms for the most part have a full package deal, so you get a bookkeeper and accountant all in one place.

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The real reason you need an accountant/bookkeeper

Can you say with great certainty, at any given time, what your small business’s financials look like?

How much cash have you spent in the past month? How much has come in to your business? How much do customers still owe you? How much do YOU owe your vendors or the bank?

Unless you yourself were keeping up with everything day to day, chances are you can’t provide answers to all these questions. Especially when you have hundreds of transactions a week.

Your accountant/bookkeeper on the other hand should be able to pull up your company information and with the click of a button print any report you would like to see.

It’s important to know how your business is performing financially and know where you need to improve to get better cash flow or reduce expenses. Understanding each individual component enables a clear picture and helps form any future business plans and/or decisions.

The next thing you need to think about is tax season.

Everyone’s FAVORITE time of the year, especially for tax accountants.

As an individual filling for taxes, it’s usually simple and straightforward. When you factor in a business, it makes things more complicated. Whether it’s a business loss or profit, different forms to fill out and have on hand.

Researching everything you need can be a headache. And if taxes are not your thing, don’t even start! Better to find someone, like an accountant who knows all the ins-and-outs of the tax laws to help you. Trust me, it will make your life sooooo much easier and relief a lot of the stress.

Because remember, you still have a business to run and daily operations and tasks don’t go anywhere when taxes are due.

You want one less thing to worry about.

Where should you go when you are ready to hire

The best option for a small business when it comes to hiring a bookkeeper or accountant is to outsource.

It will save you so much money. You don’t need to pay for health insurance benefits, or PTO. You may not have a separate office so hiring someone specifically to come in everyday and work an 8–5 job is not worth it if you don’t need a crazy amount of work done.

So many bookkeepers are online looking for jobs. Some even do taxes if they have had previous experience. If you need just a bookkeeper, quickbooks.com has a great feature where it lists ProAdvisors in your area who are certified bookkeepers and can get the job done for you.

As mentioned earlier, accounting firms will typically have everything you are looking for, it’s the full package in one convenient space. Know what you need for your business and do the research.

Search for accounting firms in your area; google is your friend here. Find out what services they offer.

After you have done your research, write a list of your top candidates and start calling, e-mailing, talking with them to find the perfect match for you and your small business.

Find out what they specifically can do for you.

How much value will they bring to the table?

Can they do what your business needs?

How much do they charge?

These are all important things to think about when making the final decision.

What now?

Fast forward… the accountant or bookkeeper that you hired cleaned up your company’s information and set everything up to make sure transactions are recorded correctly and everything is the way it needs to be.

Awesome! You’re on a roll!

Your business is doing great! Its finances are in order and you know exactly how it’s performing financially. You can now take a deep breath that there’s one thing off your plate and continue growing your business and making a difference in the world.