3 Signs Your Business Needs a CPA
By Tyler Olson, CPA, Owner, Tyler James Advisory LLC
Deciding if and when you need professional accounting and advisory help from a CPA for your small business can be stressful. This blog should help you with the process and take some of the stress off your plate. Seeking out professional help from a CPA can be an important part of growing your business and complying with Federal and State laws and regulations, a boring, yet necessary part of business ownership.
You are new to entrepreneurship and don’t have a business background
No matter how small your business is, consulting with a CPA is always a good idea if you haven't owned your own business before. If you don't know all the regulations and hoops you have to jump through to protect yourself, this can open your business up to huge risks before it even starts! Even if you don’t plan on regularly using a CPA, getting your business off on the right foot can be crucial to your success.
This can be as simple as setting up your business entity and choosing the right business structure to establish (incredibly important to protecting your personal assets), registering your business with the IRS and applicable state governments, setting up and collecting sales tax, if applicable, establishing quarterly tax estimates, etc. Getting your business off on the right foot can be critical to your success as a new entrepreneur.
You are growing like crazy and want to focus on growth, not accounting
If this is you, congrats!, you are living the American Dream. At this point in your entrepreneurial journey, you don't have time to waste, nor do you want to deal with the stresses of accounting and tax work for your business. You want to focus on your business. You do not want open yourself up to added risk by doing it yourself. This is the perfect time to seek out a CPA who can manage all this for you.
With your additional hours back in your day, you can focus on things that matter like strategy, growth, and innovation. Let a CPA take the tedious work of accounting and tax off your plate and put it on autopilot. You will feel better about your businesses finance, and will be able to focus on what matters to you. At this point, it may be more risky for the business to keep the accounting and tax work inhouse. It is time consuming, costly, and can lead to mistakes that could impact your whole business. Your CPA can be an invaluable resource for your continued growth and success.
You just don’t want to deal with the accounting
Some business owners and entrepreneurs don’t want to learn the basics of accounting and tax or spend their valuable time doing it. There are plenty of businesses that make enough money to handle having a CPA, so why not let someone take this burden from you? It can even be cost effective for your company to do so. Allowing you to focus on making money for your business while paying a CPA to handle the books and taxes can be a better business decision. It lowers your risks of mistakes and noncompliance, while allowing you to do what you do best, business. No one should be ashamed of asking for outside help, sometimes, it's just not worth the effort for you to do it on your own.
Many business owners know their business and are amazing at them. Why should they focus on learning accounting and tax laws, guidance, and complexities when they can focus on what they do best and pay an expert to do it for them? You get to handle your business and do what you love, while not having to worry about any of the complicated and tedious compliance work.
Conclusion
Choosing to hire a CPA can be a daunting task but hopefully this blog helped give you some things to consider. Whether you decide to do it or not is up to you and your businesses circumstances, but now you will be more educated and ready to make that decision!
Disclaimer: This blog is written for purely discussion and general information. It should not be used as legal and/or tax advice. This blog is not a substitute for consulting with legal council or your CPA.