As the tax season approaches, many small businesses are looking for Services Accountants Can Offer to a Small Business during this time.
However, many of us don’t realize how important it is to stay financially organized throughout the year to make this process smoother.
According to several surveys, almost 50% of small businesses don’t work with accountants, and hence, rarely get to use their services during taxation.
It’s a disappointingly colossal loss, though, because there is so much that small companies could benefit from hiring accountants for their organizations.
Besides estimating and calculating a company’s taxes, accountants can supervise financial statements and create relevant reports; they can track account payables and receivables, monitor income and expenses, and much more.
Services from accountants can bring small businesses to stable growth and support them in becoming unfailingly organized.
Business owners should realize that accountants are an integral part of the business as they contribute to its development in many ways.
Here are some examples of services that accountants can offer to a small business:
Table of Contents
Auditing
Small businesses do have to undergo external and internal audits as per regulations.
It might be because of potent reasons like alleged employee theft, bankruptcy, suspected fraud, and inefficiency in complying with the law.
Or it could be something as simple as acquiring a credit loan, for which many banks ask small businesses to conduct an audit.
Getting a loan can be a complicated task if you’ve never done it before, so whether you’re looking for a small Arizona business loan to get your business out of the starting block, or you just need a boost to get you through a slump, an accountant can offer valuable help.
In a situation like this, accountants can deem very useful and valuable and protect businesses from experiencing a hit due to inefficient bookkeeping and unavailability of adequate financial statements.
Many of them are pursuing higher education to become abreast with modern-day knowledge and understanding of proper bookkeeping and can help make business records more organized for auditors.
It will help them become aware of the details that are required by the auditors and they’ll know how to develop standardized financial statements, reports, and analyses.
With the help of such accountants, small businesses might not even need to face an audit because their financial statements would already be at par.
It would save the small business time, energy, and money, making them more efficient.
Taxation
Small businesses have to work with a limited staff on full-scale operations; it requires consistency, efficiency, and optimization.
Consequently, owners have finite time allocated in other activities, and there is none to prepare and file taxes.
It leads to mishaps and mistakes in taxation and often leads to adverse consequences because it’s a complex and time-taking task.
One of the most significant reasons behind many small businesses going bankrupt is the mishandling of their taxes.
However, they could avoid this simply by hiring an accountant.
Sleek is an excellent agency that offers a variety of services for small businesses, including Bookkeeping so that you can build your company and save time in accounting.
These professionals have the proper knowledge and understanding to ensure that all taxes are prepared, filed, and communicated to the taxpayers on time.
They tend to the firm’s taxes throughout the year, rather than only during the tax season – it allows small businesses to allocate the required amount of income for taxes beforehand.
Accountants will also help small enterprises understand the proper budgeting of taxes, reduce them, and make the best use of all available deductions.
Valuation
Accountants are individuals with expertise on critical financial concepts like business development and valuation.
Small businesses need valuation reports when they approach financial institutions for a loan or private investment.
Before transactions, these venture’s ask to review the company’s valuation, and accountants help create accurate valuation reports.
They are qualified enough to review the business’s historical records, revenue, growth, and performance.
Through such essential factors, they determine the reasonable value of the small business.
Business valuation is also significant when it comes to adding a partner into the company, as they would also like to review the financial situation and worth of the business before becoming a part of it.
Similarly, it is crucial when an owner is selling out the business to someone else; the new owner wants to be aware of its value before acquiring it.
An accountant’s services also include creating pro forma financial statements and their presentation.
These statements help attract initial funds and are based on industrial data so that businesses could come into being or expand.
Book Keeping
Small business owners usually have a long-term growth plan, which is why they can never stay stagnant in their operations.
And with growth comes greater responsibility which could make it difficult for them to complete all the tasks by themselves.
Their key goal is to do strategic thinking and develop innovative ideas that cater to their market.
Hence, many businesses hire accountants to do the bookkeeping and help them keep accurate records.
From creating monthly income statements and cashflows to yearly balance sheets, accountants offer their services throughout the year.
They can keep up with the copies of bank statements and work with different accounts payable and receivable arrangements.
They help recognize and signify the most significant revenue and cost areas, which help decision-makers decide which activities to focus on and which ones to let go of.
Accountants ensure that they do all the standardized paperwork for the business to compile and present it at the year-end properly.
All in all, accountants help companies make the right choices by providing accurate documentation of their quantitative performance.
Cost Reduction
Accountants are an integral part of the business team, and some small business owners neglect this fact.
They find that giving salary to an accountant would add up to extra expenses on their business while it is not where they should be saving on.
In the short term, yes, it may seem like that, but in the longer-term hiring, an accountant for a small business is an excellent investment as they could help immensely with cost reduction.
They are professionals who are aware of the company’s historical data and hence, know the strengths and weaknesses of the business, which is why they have essential insight into cost-cutting activities.
Additionally, they can analyze the trends and patterns of sales, profits, and losses, and bring invaluable suggestions for the business.
This also reduces the risk of investing in loss-adding projects or paying the additional cost for errors and wrong choices.
And accountants help with audits and taxes, too, which are very important and could save businesses the cost of paying hefty fines.
Conclusion
In conclusion, many small businesses are hesitant about hiring an accountant because they feel like it adds to the cost.
But that’s not true in the long-term as accountants provide essential services crucial in the growth of any business.
Small business owners could spend more of their time analytical and critical thinking by delegating the recordkeeping work to accountants.
They could help in decision-making by pointing out cost-ineffective areas; they could prevent businesses from undergoing audits and help them do their taxes, among many other things.
