Tip No. 1 – Recognise your Strengths and Limitations
Many already over-worked business owners spend their valuable time trying to solve business issues themselves, and managed the books. This is obviously useful if it is cost effective to do so.
A business owner certainly needs to be an expert on the fundamentals of their business. They don’t have to be an expert in every aspect of legislation that affects their business however. In fact, the business owners time is best spent in front if their clients. Driving the business, and bringing in more.
Proper accounting, tax, and financial advice is imperative to your business, and when you consider the value add and prevention of mistakes resulting, such advice costs less than you think.
Tip No. 2 – Understand the Issues
When consulting your accountant, aim to understand what we can do for your business, and be sure that this aligns with your needs. Communicate and set realistic goals and expectations for our involvement. This will help you to ask relevant questions and understand and act upon the advice given.
Before your meeting, give some thought to specific issues. Send us a summary of the issues you feel that you need assistance with. In this way we will have had enough time and background information to give the issues some serious thought.
Preparation before your meeting will help to maximise the benefits of the time we spend together.
Tip No. 4 – Make Your Accountants Job Easier
Accountants essentially sell time. The key to using less of our time is to organise yourself so that you make our job easier.
That means preparing for meetings as outlined above. It also means keeping your business affairs as organised as possible. Seek input about how you can improve your ‘housekeeping’ to make our task easier. If you do all that we suggest in this regard, you are in a far stronger position to keep your fees within quote, thereby keeping them realistic and manageable.
Tip No. 5 – Ask Early and Don’t Take Short Cuts
Generally speaking, it is simpler and less costly to prevent a problem than it is to solve one. A meeting with your accountant may cost money, but this outlay may be trivial in relation to the costs of solving a problem or even missing an opportunity.
We encourage you stay close to your accountant, work with us on your journey … and get in touch before making high impact decisions for your business.