Choosing a Small Business Tax Company
If you searched the Internet on choosing a small business accounting company, you may be new in business or seeking an alternative to your current small business accounting company solution. Perhaps you are seeking to consolidate multiple vendors, your accountant and bookkeeper maybe, or even a separate tax filing service. Or maybe you have been doing everything yourself, perhaps using an online DIY solution.
Whatever your current situation, if you want a small business accounting company solution to take your business to the next level, what should you look for in that solution? When you see marketing for “full service” this or that, often the advertising can be a little bit misleading, as full service can have varied meanings.
Services of a Small Business Tax Company
The word accounting means different things to different people. However, generally, it is considered to be the collection and recordkeeping of income and expense records for a small business. If accounting is simply the keeping of records, then this could be the definition that works for your small business. A small business tax company can provide some services you may be farming out to others, including:
- Collection of income and expense documents, bookkeeping.
- Categorization and recording of income and expense documents in a system for retrieval of totals by category.
- Advice to business owner as to expense and income decisions for customer service and taxation reasons.
- Licensed tax professional authorized to represent you in front of the IRS in the case of questions or an audit.
- Audit advice.
- Long term business planning for tax purposes.
- Long term and short term planning for employee benefits, retirement, and investment.
- Business structure advice; sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, etc.
For many small business owners, their small business accounting company becomes a sort of partner with the business owner to help them to achieve success.
The Cost of Hiring a Small Business Tax Company
Often a small business owner allows cost to be the major factor in choosing a small business service company. If they truly deliver full services, the cost is usually well worth it, as they help your business to thrive and pay lower taxes.
Too often, a small business owner uses one person as a bookkeeper, another as a tax preparer, and when necessary, another for accounting type advice. This ala carte approach seems economical, but they are often missing ongoing advice that will improve their business income, minimize expenses, and streamline their taxes.
It is a mistake to not consider the value of your time and efforts in promoting, building, and managing your business. Every hour you spend in accounting functions is an hour lost in growing your business. Consider it “lost opportunity cost.” Think about the time and effort you put into accounting functions now and how transferring that time and effort to your business could more than save you the costs of a full service small business accounting company like those Taxhive.com can help you with.