If you have a business, one of the things that you might wonder is whether or not you should hire an accountant or do the accounting yourself. Below we will look at the advantages and disadvantages of hiring an accountant so that you can choose for yourself.
Advantages
An Accountant Knows What He or She is Doing
There’s many technical details that are entailed with managing the finances of your small business and even simple mistakes can cause a large problem. This is very true when you are filing your taxes, because accidental omissions or inaccuracies might make the IRS audit you. The job of an accountant is to ensure all the records are free of errors and that your numbers are adding up how they should so that you don’t get in trouble.
An Accountant Will Save You Money and Time
It’s important to your accountant that your business is a successful. A way that they can do that is through looking for savings. An example would be reviewing the expenses you have monthly so that they can see where fat can be trimmed or so that record keeping can be streamlined to take less time. When it comes time to do your taxes, the accountant will go through the finances to uncover all of your deductions and credits so that you can focus on other things when it comes to your business. This may be a huge advantage if you’re planning to give more hours to developing some new products, improving on your marketing or expanding your base of customers.
An Accountant Doesn’t Just Crunch Numbers
Along with balancing the books, an accountant can also offer expert advice on things from determining a pricing structure and getting financing. If you’ve made the decision sometime in the future that the business needs to be sold or closed, an accountant will give you some tips on how you should proceed. This great input is very invaluable, particularly when it’s your very first business.
Disadvantages
An Accountant Isn’t Free
You’ll have to pay an accountant for any work they’re doing and sometimes this added amount might really break the budget. The rate of an accountant will vary based on the work, but usually you can pay at least $60 an hour for an accountant and often more. You may pay less based on your business or your relationship that you have with the accountant, but you’ll be increasing your business’ overhead, even if you’re just having them come in part time.
An Accountant is Only Human
No matter what accountant you hire, they are going to be human. They still may make mistakes. If they make a small error and its able to be quickly corrected, this usually won’t be a huge deal. But it also could spell disaster. An example is if they are putting your business’ expenses into the software and they miss a key expense. If this isn’t caught, you may be paying more come tax time because you’ve lost a very valuable deduction.
You can Easily Lose Touch
When you delegate your accounting for your small business to another person, you will save time, but you want to make sure that you are still hands-on. Although the accountant you hire is doing the work, you should still check things regularly and make sure that things are running as smoothly as possible. You should have a partnership with the accountant and each of you should have a role that is active.
Look at where your small business is and what you need currently; this will be the best way that you can guide whether you want to hire an accountant or not. If you don’t want to stare at numbers yourself or you’d rather have someone else take a look at the direction that is important for you to go in next, it’s probably a good idea to bring in another pair of eyes. But if you have the know-how and time, you can always look into buying accounting software and doing it yourself. Only you know what’s right for you.
Have More Questions
If you have more questions about your bookkeeping needs, give EZ Ledger, Inc. a call today at 239-249-8086. We would be happy to answer any questions you might have regarding bookkeeping and how we can help. We offer many services, and we look forward to doing business with you in the future! We’re located in Naples, FL, but service business natiowide in cities like Tampa, Estero, Bonita Springs, Sarasota, and much more.
