How to choose an accountant
You might not have a full list of employees on the payroll yet, but many small business owners find they have a need to turn to an accountant for financial help from their very beginning of their new venture. Whether you need assistance filing taxes, want someone to act as a financial adviser, or need help compiling your financial statements, finding the right accountant can be a huge advantage to your business.
But how do you find the right accountant for you and your business? Every accountant has different specialties, interests, and qualifications. Finding the right person can be tricky.
To find the right accountant you need to ask the right questions. ZenFinance, the firm that provides bespoke accounting and finance services to start-ups and small to medium enterprises, assembled a list of questions to help you match an accountant to your business needs.
1. What does your company need?
To find the right accountant, you’ll need to start with a basic question: What does your company need? Decide what kind of services you need before searching for an accountant, not the other way around. Do you need help with your taxes? Do you need someone to help with your daily accounting practices? Is financial tracking something you’re missing? Figure out the primary reason you feel like you need an accountant, and then look for someone with a set of skills to meet your needs.
2. What kind of reputation and experience does the accountant have?
It goes without saying that you want an accountant with extensive experience. You want one who has experience with businesses that are structured like yours. In other words, if your business is an LLC, make sure the accountant is currently handling other LLC accounts.
It’s not enough to just have an accountant. You want an accountant who is familiar with your industry, and your industry’s unique issues and needs.
You also want one point of contact. As a business owner, you want to know that you can pick up the phone at any time and get advice from the person you’ve developed a relationship with. Few things are more frustrating than constantly being rotated through a team of people and having to re-explain your questions and concerns.
Here are a few questions that you’ll want answers to from an accountant:
What’s your experience with small businesses?
What experience do you have with my industry?
Who will I be working with?
Do you offer the services that I need?
Make sure the accountant offers all the services you need. There’s no sense in hiring someone who can only do a portion of the tasks.
ZenFinance is accounting and finance solution you are looking for. Our services offer flexible, all-inclusive solution designed to help you easily and cost effectively outsource many of financial functions of your business whilst at the same time ensuring you meet your various statutory and regulatory responsibilities.
From undertaking the administrative tasks of bookkeeping, management accounts, VAT return, payroll to assisting strategic planning as a “Virtual CFO” we support businesses of all sizes.
3. How will you be billed?
Before moving forward with your accountant of choice, make sure you understand how the accountant bills for services. Billing structure can vary widely. Some accountants charge by the hour, others have flat rates per service, and others use some combination of the two.
Don’t forget to ask about charges that could occur, that haven’t been discussed yet. That might seem like an odd question, but you could be surprised by the answers you get. Better to be surprised now, before you’ve made any commitments, then to be surprised by your extra-large bill.
At ZenFinance we offer special accounting package for startups, small businesses and medium enterprises, which give your business a flexible solution to pay by the month. This solution gives the peace of mind that your accounting fees will not increase year after year.
All our plans are flexible and we can tailor the solution package to your needs.
