If you are a business owner, you have to look after many aspects of the business including marketing, planning the future strategies and financial transactions. By hiring as accountant you can shed the load of finance department of the company as an accountant can manage accounting and book keeping, can help you in filing the tax return and can also give you the advice for the growth of the business. However, it is not easy to find a good accountant suitable to your business needs. So, here are a few tips that will help you in this task.
- Do a research- When you decide to hire an accountant or accounting services for your business, you must do a good online research to find out the reputed accountant in your area. You must go through their websites or read online reviews about them posted by their clients. In this way, you will get the idea about their professionalism, the quality of the services they provide and their reliability. One more way you can find an accountant is by asking for references to your friends, fellow businessmen and bankers. They will surely suggest a few reliable names.
- Fix the meetings- Once you have got a list of well-reputed accountants in your area through research and references, shortlist a few you find suitable to your business needs and fix the meetings with them to get more information and discuss some relevant issues.
- Services- When you will meet the accountant, the first and the most important question to ask them is what type of services they provide. Most of the accounting firms provide tax and auditing services. However, as a business owner you might have a requirement of the person handling bookkeeping and day to day accounting work of the company. You might be in need of a business advice. So, try and find an accountant or a firm that can help you with all these tasks. In addition to their skills and qualifications, see if they have enough experience of working with the type of business that you run. This is crucial because every business has its own exclusive accounting needs that required to be handled skillfully.
- Personality- The accountant handles the most important aspect of your business and hence it is important to hire a professional whose style is compatible with yours. Make sure the people you are meeting will the ones handling your work as some of the accounting firms tend to transfer actual work to others. In order to check the compatibility, ask them many questions like how they will react in a particular situation and how they will handle certain queries. Their answer will help you determine if their thinking matches with yours. It is also better to hire a one with different approach provided they don’t force you to do the things you are not comfortable with.
- Fees- It is important to know about the fees the accounting firm will charge upfront. Most of them charge on hourly basis while a few others charge on monthly basis. You must take quotes from the different accountant and do the comparisons of charges as well as the services they provide. However, don’t take the decision solely based on the cost. The accountant charging you the higher fees likely to have more experience and can handle the work more efficiently. So, take the decision wisely.
After following all the above steps and considering all the concerned factors, do a proper analysis of the information you have got about all the shortlisted accountants and hire the one you find right for your business.
Outbooks provides account outsourcing services to accountants and accounting firms across the UK & Ireland. We have a team of over 150 across 4 delivery centers in India and have been in the business for past 9 years helping our clients save over 50% on their costs.
