Because we’re an accounting firm, you might think this post is more self serving that helpful, but we assure you that our intentions are good. We’ve worked with a lot of people who did their own taxes and budgets and sometimes had some costly mistakes. It’s not as easy as it sounds to keep up with your own records, especially if your career isn’t in finance.
Because of that, and a few other things, we want to give 5 reasons why you might need an accountant. There are more, but we don’t want to overwhelm anyone. Let’s get started.
1. An accountant saves you time.
We don’t doubt that many people can handle their own bookkeeping, tax preparation and the like. We also know that many people, especially self employed people, don’t have the time to dedicate to it. They’re either scraping for those income dollars, dealing with personal concerns, or worried about budgets.
People work hard to make money, and when there’s down time, why have to deal with a lot of financial issues when you could be out having fun with your family? How much easier would it be to have someone who can take all of your information and put it together for you? How much would your mind be eased if not only someone else was handling your taxes, but giving you tax advice during the year if needed?
2. Information tracking.
This ties in to our previous point. If you’re a business with many different divisions, you can find out how you’re making your money without having to do all the work on your own. You can customize how much or how little you want to track, and an accountant can get it done for you.
If you want alerts to things such as the need to pay more quarterly taxes or telling you that you might want to add some expenses to help keep your taxes lower, an accountant can work with you on those types of things. An accountant can help you manage many business issues and make recommendations for help with payroll or investing. You can opt for monthly or yearly information or something in between. Quickbooks is nice to use, but do you have the time to do it?
3. Tax rules. Did we mention taxes above? There are a lot of tax preparation companies out there and they all do a pretty good job. When it comes to business taxes though, would you feel more comfortable with someone who just did a crash course on the subject or someone with years of experience who only had to learn a few differences for the current year?
Every year there are lots of new rules to try to keep up with. Accountants are learning about these new rules throughout the year, instead of having to take a crash course on them. They’ll also work with you to find ways of charting expenses to help reduce your tax liability. If you own a business, this will be very helpful, especially if the recommendation is to purchase items for your business.
4. Budgeting education and support.
Personal and business budgeting is something we greatly support, but something most people are either reluctant to do or don’t know how to do. We might not be able to help you with your reluctance, but we can certainly show you how it’s done, do it for you, train you on Quickbooks or help you set up an Excel spreadsheet if you want to track things yourself.
Budgeting can bring you peace of mind, long term financial health, and get you out of financial trouble if you’ve gone astray and need help. Even if you’re comfortable with your financial situation, budgeting can help you long term if you’re looking to buy property, go on vacation, wondering how much you can invest and of course plan for emergencies. Most people hate thinking about budgeting, but it’s better to know what’s going on than not know and suddenly need money you might not have without planning ahead. This is something accountants can help you with.
5. Peace of mind.
Wouldn’t you like a bit of peace of mind in your life?
The thing that most people worry about are their finances, whether they have an excess of money or not. The thing most couples argue about the most are regarding finances. If you have children, you know finances are second on your list behind health.
If you don’t know how your money is being spent then you don’t know how to decide what you can spend money on for fun or what you need to spend money on for more important things. Accountants bring you peace of mind because if you allow them to help you with your money they’ll call you if things are off the mark. They’ll give you updates when you’re doing well. It’s always a comforting feeling knowing someone’s watching over your money when you don’t have the time to do it yourself.
These are our top five; as we said earlier, there are plenty more. Do you think you need an accountant? Could you use financial help with your money? It’s something to think about.
