Proper financial management can make or break your business. Most small business owners choose to go it alone and not bring an accountant onto their team. You may be thinking that you can handle it, or that an accountant isn’t worth the money, but what is the cost of not getting one? If you are not keeping your books and accounting properly you could:
- Fail to claim expenses that are value and miss out on tax breaks
- Fall behind on invoicing
- Get in trouble with the government due to underestimating your tax bill
- Get fined due to late tax return and compliance paperwork filing
- Have books with mistakes that can take hours to fix
- Not be able to make real-time decisions because you don’t have access to the information you need on-hand
These are just a few things that could happen without outsourced accounting services with a seasoned accountant in your corner. The following are eight reasons why you shouldn’t be handling your accounting all on your own and should hire a professional.
Your Time is Valuable
If you choose not to have an accountant, you’re stuck doing your taxes yourself each year, or you are having another employee doing it. However, if you or the employee are stuck putting in hours and hours of work on taxes, then there is no time to be doing what is otherwise required of you or them. If you have the time to do this, then it could work, but only for a little while. As your business grows, you’ll have less time to do any work that is not the work that pays.
Taxes Don’t Have to Be Stressful
Taxes can be stress-inducing, but they don’t have to be as stressful as you think. If you have an accountant in your corner, then you don’t have anything to worry about if you get a letter from the IRS. An accountant can eliminate the stress of taxes because they will be ensuring your business’s finances are all accounted for.
Hiring a professional will also eliminate the stress of having to do it all yourself. Your sanity is important, and a key factor is running your business smoothly—keep your sanity by handing your finances over to someone who knows what they’re doing.
Your Business’s Financial Health is Important
Without a bookkeeper keeping tabs all year, you may not be totally aware of how well your business is actually performing throughout the year. A professional can keep tabs on your revenue, expenses, and performance throughout the year. This can help you to have a better understanding of your cash flow, determine the market patterns that are beneficial for you and the business, and identify circumstances that can reduce costs. A professional accountant can monitor all of these things which can enable you to make better decisions overall for your business.
Outsourced Accounting Services Allows for More Growth
There are always going to be circumstances that grow the business but make finances more complicated, whether this is expanding the number of in-house employees or signing a new contract. While you may have been able to manage your finances at first, in order for your business to grow you need to be able to handle it financially. A professional will be able to keep up with business growth, ensuring that all laws and paperwork is meeting the requirements.
Your Financial Plan May Not Be the Best for You
Having a solid financial plan allows you to better assess the business’s growth. If you properly plan, you can keep tabs on the capital required to start and grow the business, as well as the revenue, expenses, and profits.
In addition, a professional can also help you to determine the best legal structure for your business. While most small businesses think that sole proprietorships are the best and simplest option, an accountant will be able to help you determine the legal risks that can accompany your current legal structure and whether another one may be more beneficial.
You Can’t Afford to Make Mistakes
Not only will tax and accounting mistakes cost you time and effort to correct, but they will also cost you money. While you may not make any mistakes, there is still always a risk if you’re doing your accounting and bookkeeping yourself.
These mistakes can cause an audit, make you miss key tax deductions, have you spending resources on services that aren’t profitable, on top of many other things. Correcting all of these mistakes is something that you may not have the money for, but also something you can avoid altogether by hiring a professional.
You Aren’t a Pro
There’s no denying that you are not equipped with the knowledge and resources that a seasoned accountant is. At the end of the day, professionals are able to handle things that are thrown their way.
They are also aware of all the possible issues that could arise because they’ve seen a lot and they work hard to avoid these issues. You may not even know what half of these issues are so how can you expect to be proactive? You aren’t a professional accountant, so it’s better to leave these things to the professionals.
Advice Whenever You Need It
Aside from handling taxes, having an accountant in your corner allows you access to them whenever needed. You then have access to all of the information that they’ve gathered through their monitoring of the company finances. Most importantly, this allows you to make decisions in real-time with information at your fingertips, which is both more professional and more efficient.
Keeps You Focused on What’s Important
Even though you may not be a professional in accounting, you are good at what you do for your business. You are a key asset to the business, helping it to grow and thrive with your own unique expertise. By hiring an accountant, you are able to stay focused on what you do best. Furthermore, you’re able to stay on top of the things that are important to the business aside from the finances and legalities.
We hope you enjoyed our article about outsourced accounting services and how important they are for the success of your business. My OC Bookkeeper has the experience and expertise to help you with all of your bookkeeping and accounting needs. Make sure to contact us here for a free consultation.
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