An accountant is someone who does accounting or bookkeeping for one or more businesses. An accountant can also help you file and pay taxes.
Accounting is the process of logging financial transactions in your business.
Many small business owners, consultants, freelancers, and contractors turn to accountants for help with their accounting. It makes sense, as your focus is probably on running your business, getting clients, producing goods, and providing services.
What does an accountant do?
The accountant’s main task is accounting. Accounting gives you an up-to-date overview of your business’ financial health so that you can make sound decisions, such as cutting costs or hiring employees.
An accountant can also:
- keep track of and bookkeep purchases
- run payroll
- report and pay tax to the government
- pay invoices coming from your suppliers
- send invoices to your clients
Accountants can also provide financial or tax advice. Before you go looking for an accountant, you should think about what kind of accounting services you need: Do you want help with all of the above, or simply with reporting and paying tax?
Some freelancers and consultants, who do not have a lot of sales and purchases, choose to simply hire someone for a few hours on a yearly basis to do their tax reporting.
Some accountants are employed in the business they do accounting for. Others work for accounting firms and serve many different businesses, usually at an hourly rate.
How much does an accountant cost?
In the US, an accountant can charge anywhere from 150 to 400 dollars. It really depends on what you want help with, and how many transactions you have in your business: In other words, how many bills you get from suppliers and how many invoices you send to clients.
Is there an alternative?
If you find good accounting software or an accounting system, you might not need an accountant. It depends on how numbers-savvy you are, and how much time you’re willing to spend on accounting.