Why Its Important To Engage An Accountant ASAP When Starting A Business

Many business owners forget about using the services of professionals that could be beneficial to their business such as lawyers and accountants. Instead, they head into the business world at full speed without even a passing thought towards the possibilities that services like this offer. They do this for a few reasons. Arguably one of the major considerations is financial. Business owners can’t help but see an accountant as another paycheck or bill that they need to cover. As well as this, they rarely understand the important role an individual like this can fill in their company. You shouldn’t make the same mistake. Instead, you should learn how an accountant could benefit your company and put it in a stronger position. However, before we look at the benefits, it’s interesting to examine when you should hire an accountant.

Day One Or In Time For Delegation?

There are two options to consider when deciding on the right time to hire an accountant. You can hire from day one at the starting point of your company. This makes a lot of sense as there are many jobs in that first year that will be a lot easier with a trained accountant at your side.

For instance, you will be putting together your business plan, decided what funds and resources to invest where. An accountant can help you make the right choices here and advise you on how to use your capital in the most effective ways. With access to financial software, an accountant will also be able to help you understand projections about the future of your company. The benefit of getting a service like this early on is that you can avoid making mistakes with financial planning that need to be corrected by an accountant later on. Essentially, an early hire could save you more money in the long run.

An accountant can help you set up your finances the right way. For instance, you may want to think about using cloud-based software to manage your business accounts. Skilled accountants from top firms can set up this software at the beginning. So, as well as having experts monitoring and organizing your accounts, you’ll be able to check on them yourself.

You’ll find that legality and financial issues often collide in your company. As such, usually, accountants and lawyers work together to fulfill your business requirements. There are a number of different business models that you can choose for operations within your company. The legal structure can vary, and an accountant can look at all the options with you to find the most suitable possibility for your business.

Of course, the other option is to begin your business and then choose an accountant when you are ready to delegate. But, as we have shown, this decision is filled with pitfalls. You might find that by the time you’re ready to hand the accounts off to someone else, they are already in a terrible state and need fixing.

Role Of Accountants In Business

We have already mentioned a few of the roles an accountant can have in the early days of your company. They can be involved in everything from setting up accounting technology to choosing the right legal structure, but there are many more.

Understanding Finances

You might think that it’s quite easy to understand whether your company is doing well on the market. Generally speaking, if you’re making a profit, you might assume your company is stable. But, you could have a number of different outgoings, investments, loans and incomes to try and dissect. Understanding the accounts of a medium sized business can be complicated. That’s why you should use your accountant to help explain the situation to you. This way, you’ll understand your true position on the market.

Keeping Records

Keeping financial records in order is always going to be important for your business. On a basic level, keeping an accurate history of your finances will make things a lot easier if you decide to sell your company. It’s one of the first factors that potential buyers investigate. Financial records will also be a huge asset during the time of taxation or if you are audited by the government. An audit can be a daunting prospect for new business owners, but with an accountant, it can be relatively pain-free.

Although, if you hire an accountant there’s also the possibility that you are never audited in the first place. Various issues cause businesses to get audited. For instance, you might have excessive write-offs or mistakes on your tax returns. With an accountant on your team all year around, these errors should never come into play.

Specific Advice

There will be plenty of situations where an accountant could be a fantastic advisor. For instance, you might be deciding whether to buy equipment for your business second hand or brand new. An accountant will be able to walk you through the financial benefits and disadvantages of each choice so that you can make a final informed decision.

Saving Time

One of the main basic advantages of hiring an accountant is that you’ll have more time for other areas of your business. If you’re not delegating finances to an accountant, you could be spending several hours every day on the accounts. This will drag down the efficiency levels in your business model and let’s not forget, you could be making mistakes as well. Eventually, these mistakes will need to be corrected, and that means you’ll need to hire an accountant sooner or later.

Ahead Of The Curve

Finally, an accountant can help you get ahead of financial issues. From day one, you can think about the future of the company and look at financial estimates. Don’t forget, accountants have contacts in the industry that you won’t be able to use. They will be able to examine the financial market for you and use their resources to provide you real-time data so you can make adjustments to your business model. As such, accountants can do more than just keep your business finances in check. They can help your company grow into the future.