Operating or owning a business is one of the most rewarding things that you can do, provided that you’re successful at it. Nothing can give you more pleasure than seeing your brainchild rise from obscurity to dominate a particular niche or industry. However, there are likely many challenges if you want to get to that point, and new ones will continue to rise with each passing day.
You need someone who can take care of your financials for you, and that’s going to be a skilled, versatile accountant. You might have a large enough company that you need an entire accounting department, but for this article’s sake, we’ll talk about a smaller business that only requires a single full-time accountant.
Let’s review some of the things that this vital individual can do for you.
A&A Services
You might want an individual that can standardize your A&A work. If you’re not familiar, A&A means accounting and assurance. You likely know what accounting means, but what does assurance indicate in this context?
Assurance means that your accountant or a similar individual creates a report, or ongoing reports, which demonstrate and confirm your financial health. You might need those for internal use, or you may require them to satisfy shareholders. You might need assurance if you’re trying to bring in some new investors or you’re attempting to secure a credit union or bank loan.
Standardizing your A&A work means getting an accountant, or a firm in a larger company’s case, that can streamline your regular accounting chores. They’ll also regularly produce assurance reports and statements that can reassure everyone involved with the company that everything is running smoothly. Assurance tasks are like internal audits that reveal everything is copacetic.
They Can Help You if the IRS Audits You
Speaking of audits, you never know when the IRS will decide to come after your business. Maybe they feel like there are some irregularities, and they want to dig into your tax records for one year, or perhaps multiple years.
If that happens, it does not necessarily mean that you did anything wrong. Perhaps you didn’t have a competent accountant working for you for a while, and you did not do so good of a job of reporting all your expenses and revenue like you should have.
Your accountant can persuade the IRS that everything is above broad. That’s going to matter a lot because if you can’t get the IRS off your back, that’s a shadow that’s going to hang over your business until you can resolve it satisfactorily.
They Can Find Some New Deductions for You
If you run any size company, then taking business deductions can save you untold thousands of dollars every year. You need to make sure that you’re taking all of the standard ones, but you might also be in a business where you can deduct some things you might not necessarily realize.
You can carefully go over all your expenditures with your accountant before you file your taxes each year. They will probably be able to come up with some things you missed, and that’s going to help your bottom line a great deal.
They Can Let You Know if Theft or Fraud Are Happening
Unfortunately, you might have a situation at some point where someone is trying to steal from you, or they are already doing so. Maybe some fraudulent activity is happening as well.
If so, you may not be able to figure it out immediately. If you’re running the company, you have a million things to do, and the job’s everyday minutia won’t allow you to notice when some of the numbers don’t add up like they should.
A skilled accountant should immediately notice when something seems fishy, and they can also figure out where the irregularity is happening. You don’t want to have to call out an employee or department that’s stealing from you or perpetrating fraud, but you can’t allow it to go on.
An individual or group who would do that is not only illegally enriching themselves. They’re also betraying your trust. They can get you in a lot of IRS-related troubles, so you can’t allow it to go on.
Accountants might not have the world’s most glamorous job, but most companies can’t survive without them. Think about that when you hire one since you’ll want to get one that knows their stuff as well as an individual with whom you get along.
