What You Gain from Hiring an Accounting Firm
When running a business, you may have questions about exactly what a CPA services practice will do for your organization. For small operations, this is often a question of whether the expenditure can be justified. For large operations, it becomes a question of whether the job can be handled in-house. In both cases, there are several strong arguments for asking an accounting firm for assistance. Let's take a look at three of the biggest ones.
Keeping Up with Regulations
Accounting services companies are in the business of learning about local, state, and federal regulations that apply to their customers. The size of the U.S. tax code alone is astounding, taking up nearly 75,000 pages according to some estimates. With the passing of each new calendar year in the government, new regulations that apply to your organization's finances and bookkeeping are likely to emerge. In most cases, it's just easier to leave the problem to a professional.
Technical Know-How
Many types of accounting services are now heavily software-driven. While it can be tempting to use the software and hope it will act as your accountant, the truth is that understanding the software might become a job in its own right.
A CPA services firm can often address software questions that go beyond accounting. For example, a restaurant that's setting up a merchant terminal and a point-of-sale system in order to accept credit card payments will be up against a steep learning curve. Most of the time, an accounting firm has a software ecosystem that they prefer, and they tend to keep their clients within it. One major advantage in such cases is that you may be able to visit other businesses that use the software to see it in action, ask questions, and get advice.
Unbiased Opinions
Getting unclouded advice in the world of business is a surprisingly difficult task. Lots of people might tell you what to do, but that guidance tends to come from folks who have day-to-day relationships with you and stakes in your operation.
It can be a huge benefit to be able to ask a CPA for a straight answer about the state of your organization. They can go through your numbers and give you an unbiased view of how a knowledgeable outsider sees your operations. This can be particularly good to have when dealing with obtaining new financing for the business, restructuring, or streamlining processes.