Working with an accountant can seem scary. You might wonder if you are a big enough company, you might be intimidated because you’re behind on your bookkeeping, and you may feel anxious about being judged. I’m here to reassure you that we accountants have seen it all, and if we haven’t, we’ve probably seen something worse than your situation.
It’s kind of like going to the dentist. You may have anxiety about going to a new dentist, especially if you haven’t seen one in a long time, but you can’t get help until you go. You have to take that first step toward good financial (or dental) health.
And that first step is to reach out. We don’t know you need us until you tell us. The best time to start working with an accountant is now, and if there’s an issue with your finances, the longer you wait, the harder it is to fix. Our job as accountants isn’t to judge—that’s just not helpful—but collaborate with you to come up with the best possible solution for your situation.
After you reach out, we can evaluate where you are and where you want to go. We will have different solutions if you are wanting to grow and sell your business versus if you want to stay small and efficient.
The next step will be to get information and access to all the financial information we’ll need to monitor the health of your business and analyze if you’re on track with your financial goals. This includes QuickBooks, a point of sale (software that collects your payments), and read-only access to your bank account. We will also most likely ask you to give us access to historical information on the IRS website if we are changing anything about your taxes in the past.
At this point in the process, your job is over, and we will take care of your financials and taxes. We often will ask questions at least monthly about what is going on in your business and what certain transactions are. We will also ask you to provide receipts and other bookkeeping information to keep everything up to date.
Each month, after we are confident in your financials, we will provide you with financial data that will help you make good decisions. The basics will be financial statements, but having discussed your business’s financial goals when you reached out, we will be able to customize your results to give you the best possible information.
We hope that everyone can enjoy their time working with us here at Charles Harris CPA. We want to be an integral part of your business, not just a once-a-year transaction, to ensure better results for you and more timely information as you and your business need it.
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