majones
18 posts since
Dec 10, 2007
6.
Re: How should I best use an Accountant? Dec 10, 2007 5:26 PM
The previous answers you received were all pretty much right.. you should be doing the basics yourself (like paying the bills, invoicing customers, etc.). The accountant is there to "clean up" your work, and to help produce financial statements that can be trusted, do your taxes, and that sort of thing. Depending on how you have things setup, it may eventually make sense to have your accountant handle paying your bills, running the payroll and handling payroll reports and taxes, etc.
One consideration might be HOW you run your accounting. If your accounting software and data is at your business, but your accountant is not, then there is a disconnect in how you and your accountant can work together. You have to copy data files back and forth, or send shoeboxes full of documents to them to process. Often, the accountant feels compelled to re-do your books, for whatever reason (usually they contend that your books are a mess).
If you were doing your books using an online sort of model, then you and your accountant could be in there at the same time. Having your accountant clean-up after you is much better than having them re-do everything. And, by running online, you and the accountant can get to the information when it is convenient. Frequently, this type of working arrangement gets you better and faster results from your accountant, and allows the accountant to work with you when they have the time available.
Check out www.cpaasp.com for ways to run QuickBooks Pro, Premier or Enterprise this way. There's also QuickBooks Online Edition directly from Intuit, for those with a very basic accounting software requirement.
