Estimated reading time: 4 mins
No matter whether your business has only just started up or you have been in operation for quite some time, you may be considering hiring an accountant. This is something that most business owners tend to do. While attempting everything in-house is admirable, it can be a large burden to carry, and it can even have a negative impact on your bottom line. So, with that in mind, continue reading to discover more about the benefits associated with hiring an accountant, as well as some useful tips on finding the right accountant for you.
What are the reasons to hire an accountant?
There are many different reasons why you should hire an accountant. Let’s start with one of the lesser discussed benefits, and this is the fact that accountants can actually train and hire staff with new financial systems and corporate culture. As your business grows, it is likely you are going to need extra operational support staff so that you can deal with the extra workload relating to inventory, purchasing, credit/collections, billing, payroll, and HR. This is something your accountant will be able to assist with.
Your accountant can also help you when it comes to negotiating with suppliers. An experienced and savvy accountant will know how to get you the best deals, whether this is upgraded IT support or steeper discounts on bulk purchases. However, you need to do your research to ensure you choose a legitimate accountant who does things by the book when securing these deals. The last thing you want to do is get involved with price fixing or stolen goods without even realising it. Thankfully, due to the online world we live in, picking out a bad accountant can be pretty easy.
In addition to this, your accountant will be able to assist you in terms of tracking the return on an investment, creating forecasts, and navigating the regulatory process. After all, taxes are not the only part of your business that the government oversees. There are lots of different rules and regulations that are in place, which you need to adhere to. Failure to do this can result in large fines and huge reputational damage. With a good accountant on your side, you do not need to worry about this.
Of course, accountants will also handle all of your taxes for you as well. As your company grows, your payroll and taxes are only going to get more complicated because there will be more regulations and more variables. An accountant will have an organised system for managing all of this and they will keep up to date with any legislative changes. You can also free up your time by hiring an accountant. Business owners and managers have enough to do without having to worry about internal controls, leases, insurance, payroll, compliance, taxes, and so on. They should be focusing on tasks that are going to be increasing your revenue. An accountant can take over these tasks that are a necessity yet time consuming. This gives you and your senior team members the ability to extend your market reach, create strategic partnerships, manage change, and innovate products.
The benefits do not end there either. Accountants can also help if you are experiencing a period of stalled growth. Furthermore, they can, of course, boost your income while lowering your experiences too. A financial expert will help to regularise and optimise your revenue stream by advising wise investments, improving debt collection, and overseeing accounts receivable. They will also help you with reducing your expenses by analysing your company data so they can find areas whereby costs can be reduced. This could be too-high overhead, extraneous staff, or excess inventory.
How to find a good accountant for your business
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding regarding all of the benefits that are associated with hiring an accountant at your business. However, to unlock all of these advantages, you are going to need to choose an accountant with care. The first thing you need to consider is whether location matters. In today’s digital age, more and more people are hiring accountants based anywhere in the country, as they can handle all accounts via telephone and email. However, there are still those that prefer hiring an accountant in their location so that they can get to their offices with ease if needed.
You should also make sure that the accountant is chartered or certified for your peace of mind. This means that they have a high level of qualification. Aside from this, you will want an accountant that has relevant experience, i.e. has dealt with businesses of your size and nature before. You can even use your social networks online to try and find the best accountant. This can help you to determine the accountant’s qualifications, experience, services, and who they are connected to. Finally, you need to think about how the accountant’s time is going to be divided. What do you want them to work on for your business mainly? What are your priorities?
As you can see, there are a number of different benefits that are associated with hiring an accountant. However, you are only going to reap these benefits if you choose the right accountant for you. Carefully consider all of the different things that have been mentioned above, and you should have no issue finding an accountant that will take your business to the next level.
