What an accountant can do for your startup in 2 minutes
Are you thinking about hiring an accountant for your business? If you’ve been pulling your hair out trying to keep all your records straight as your business grows, it might be time for you to let go of your accounting work and have a professional do it for you. Here is everything you need to know about hiring an accountant for your business:
What is an accountant?
An accountant is a professional with an advanced degree and years of experience working on accounts receivable, accounts payable, journal entries, bank reconciliations, month-end closes, and more. An accountant can run your daily accounting work without any guidance from you. You can rely on them to do the accounting work the right way.
What can an accountant do for your business?
1. Perform accounting tasks with minimum supervision
An accountant will do the daily accounting work from receiving money, sending money, debt collection, cash management, month-end accruals, and bank reconciliations to month-end close. An accountant is able to do anything that relates to managing cash and recording the accounting data for your business.
2. Recommend the right accounting technology to use
An experienced accountant knows what accounting software to use for your business and when to use it. The right accounting software can streamline the data flow and automate some of the business processes. When using the right accounting software, you will be able to save time and money.
3. Be your advisor to talk about anything money-related
A skilled accountant sees the trend and proactively recommends ways for you to manage cash flow, restructure the accounting process and strategically plan for future growth. An experienced accountant points out when to use your revenue on the most-needed business areas and how to avoid wasting money on areas that don’t help your business grow.
Should you hire a bookkeeper, an accountant, or a CPA?
It all boils down to this:
1. If you know what you are doing accounting-wise and just need someone to actually do the work, then you should hire a bookkeeper.
2. If you have a general knowledge of accounting and need someone who can do all the work and then bounce around ideas with you, then hire an accountant.
3. If you absolutely don’t know what you’re doing and need someone to tell you what to do, then hire a CPA (Certified Public Accountant). Not only do CPAs have an accounting degree and accounting experience, they have also passed a 14-hour examination. They know what they’re doing!
When to hire an accountant?
When your company is growing and you are ready to delegate the accounting tasks, or wanting to bounce around ideas with a professional, or when you are facing challenges for growing your business, it might be a good time to hire an accountant to help out.
It might sound counterintuitive, but sometimes in order to make money, you need to spend money first on hiring the right person who can help you make more money later. To compete with other businesses, you need the right talent to do the work. Hiring an experienced accountant will help you avoid mistakes, navigate through business challenges and grow your business!
