A good accountant is about a lot more than just filing your business taxes so the IRS doesn’t come knocking at your door. That’s because, contrary to what many people think, accounting is about a whole lot more than tax returns and balance sheets during tax season. No, a good accountant not only carries out the aforementioned duties, but can also perform other key tasks for your business, thereby allowing you to focus more time on growing your company and less time on the other nitty gritty details.
Just what is an accountant? Specifically, an accountant is a professional who is tasked with tracking a business’s income and expenses in order to evaluate its financial status. So with that being said, just what tasks can your Atlanta accountants perform for your company? Here’s a look:
What Can an Accountant do for You?
- Bookkeeping: This is one of the most basic services offered by accountants. It simply consists of keeping a detailed record of all statements and transactions and then preparing the information in the form of financial statements. Typically, this bookkeeping is done either on a weekly or monthly basis and can give business owners and corporate management a regular idea of how fiscally solvent a business is.
- Tax services: This is perhaps the service most synonymous with accounting – tax services. And a good accountant does more than just file your taxes properly in order to avoid an IRS audit. A good, experienced accountant can actually save your business big money when it comes to taxes by suggesting tax planning and various saving strategies throughout the year. So while you’ll be paying an accountant to do this work for you, the money you save could far outweigh this expense in the long run.
- Audits: There are two types of audits: the type that the IRS asks of your business in the event that it finds your tax returns suspicious or the type that you’re required to file if you’re a public company. While the former is an unwelcome type of audit, the latter is mandatory, should you qualify. No matter what kind of audit is needed, however, the truth is that they can be very time consuming. There’s the accounting work that needs to be done to prepare for the audit and the audit itself that consume a lot of time. But it’s a timely service that you can easily pass off to an accountant to avoid the preparatory work that it entails.
- Reviews: Reviews are another fairly basic accounting task. They’re far less intensive than an audit and are typically done on a quarterly basis. Simply put, a review will take a look at whether a company’s financial statements accurately reflect the company’s financial solvency.
There are variety of other small services that an accountant can provide for a small business. These include the likes of compilations, business consulting, business valuation and financial advising.
So just how can Atlanta accountants aid your business? Essentially, they can eliminate many of the necessary evils that come with operating a business so that you have more time to concentrate on just that – operating your business.
For more on how an accountant can help your business – such as QuickBooks setup and payroll – contact Sound Business Services today.
Post Excerpt
How can an accountant help your Atlanta business? There are plenty of ways that a good accountant can take work out of a business owner’s hands.