Less Work for You
As every good business owner knows, duplicate work is a major productivity killer. The last thing you want is having your employees (or yourself) doing the same tasks again and again, wasting precious company time. But when you have separate accountants for your taxes and your bookkeeping, you’re doing just that—creating unnecessary duplicate work for yourself.
Your tax accountant will need your books to file your tax return. Your bookkeeper should be able to confirm that your taxes and your books match. You’ll find yourself having a lot of similar conversations with both of these individuals, and may even end up playing middleman between the two. But when you have one person handling both your bookkeeping and your taxes, you’re able to avoid that duplicate work and save yourself a lot of time and effort.
Consistency and Accuracy
As we already mentioned, your books and your business tax return should match for tax and legal purposes. When you have separate channels of communication with different individuals who require similar information, you open up a lot of possibilities for errors and inconsistencies.
For example, you provide your accountant with your books at the beginning of the New Year so that they can begin preparing your taxes. A week later, your bookkeeper notices some expenses that had not yet been added to the books. They add this information, but it’s not passed on to your accountant. Weeks later, your accountant sends your completed return to you for your review.
Perhaps you notice the difference, in which case you have to ask your accountant to redo the return (and you have to pay for it). Or perhaps you don’t, in which case you miss out on some deductions; in some situations involving inaccuracies between your books and your return, you may even find yourself facing an audit and potential fines.
When your tax accountant is also your bookkeeper, you only have one person handling your financial information. Your accountant can quickly and easily prepare your return based off the books that they’re keeping, and neither of you has to worry about ensuring your separate accountants have the same financial data.
Less Sharing of Sensitive Information
Another benefit to only having one channel of communication for your financials is that you’re passing that sensitive information back and forth much less frequently. The more often you send your financial information—whether it be by email, post, or any other communication method—you open up additional opportunities for hackers to steal your information. When you work with only one accountant, you only need to share that information one time, which reduces your odds of becoming a victim of cybercrime.
Here at The Accounting Guys, we can handle your bookkeeping needs, as well as preparing your business tax return in Provo. With our knowledge, expertise, and attention to detail, we can provide you with precise books and tax return preparation for your company. And, we utilize a secure client portal to protect your sensitive financial information. Give us a call today to learn how we can help with your accounting and bookkeeping needs.