Knowing The Importance Of A Yonkers Accounting & Bookkeeping Services
It doesn’t matter if you’re in charge of an established business or running a small startup, monitoring your financial accounts is vital for ensuring you make informed decisions about your business. That’s what professional accounting and bookkeeping services are for.
Accounting involves tracking all income and expenses. In addition to monitoring a business’s financial situation, accountants are also trained to offer strategic financial advice.
Bookkeeping involves keeping financial transaction records and preparing statements, including income statements and balance sheets. During day-to-day business operations, bookkeepers are responsible for handling payroll and ensuring employees fill out invoices and expenses accurately.
During this lesson, we’ll give a detailed overview of professional bookkeeping and accounting services, so you can make an informed decision about whether to outsource your business’s financial accounts.
Professional Services
Bookkeepers are official financial transaction record-keepers for businesses. Meanwhile, an accountant is a financial strategist, responsible for helping with tax planning, preparing for audits and offering expert financial analysis.
In many cases, bookkeeping and accounting services are handled by the same individual, but before deciding which professional or professionals to hire, learn more about what each service involves.
Bookkeeping
Clear business records are essential. They help you to know exactly how much money you owe and how much is owed to you. They prevent you from making any costly – and potentially illegal – errors. Bookkeeping also helps your business to monitor and identify multiple income sources.
Here are some of the key records you need to keep up-to-date:
- Payroll and employment taxes
- Expenses
- Sales and purchases
- Profit and loss statements
- Bank statements
- Cash flow analysis
Two further important records to maintain are accounts payable and accounts receivable. Account receivables are claims from uncollected amounts, typically from a credit sale. For example, a sale agreed to by the buyer who has not yet handed over any cash.
Accounts payable are the amount owed to a lender or credit for completed service or goods transactions. For example, a business might take out short-term loans with a bank and the repayments would be classified as accounts payable.
You can learn more about recordkeeping on the IRS’s official website.
Tax Planning
Tax planning and filing your tax returns are never fun activities, but they are essential for ensuring everything is conducted legally. Besides preventing avoidable audits and reducing filing errors, a professional accountant can also save you money. This is because their job is to keep up to date with all regulations and tax codes and advise you as to how much your business should put aside to avoid any nasty surprises.
Audit
Before you start panicking – an audit is rarely as bad as you imagine! The almost universally dreaded “IRS audit” typically only occurs if a business is not accurately filing their taxes. That said, an audit is standard practice if a business is looking to obtain cash from banks or investors, as those entities need to know a business’s financial position to calculate the risk before investing any capital.
If you need to prepare for an audit, an accountant can become your best friend, as they can help you to save a lot of time.
Here are some key tips to help your business avoid getting audited:
- File your taxes ahead of time.
- Pay your taxes ahead of time.
- Don’t inaccurately file business receipts and sales.
- Maintain accurate business records.
- Never record personal spending as business expenses.
- Be in the know about tax reporting obligations specific to your business.
Hiring Vs DIY
After getting an overview of basic bookkeeping and accounting services, you might be considering whether you can handle the tasks yourself – or whether you need to hire a professional. When it comes to making the right decision, one of the things you need to think about is the frequency and volume of various financial tasks for your business. For example, do you need to prepare weekly, monthly, quarterly and/or yearly financial reports?
Another thing to take into consideration is your current financial knowledge. Do you already have an employee who is qualified in accounting and bookkeeping procedures? If not, hiring a professional accountant is likely to be the safest bet.
It is important to remember that you don’t have to hire an accountant on a full-time basis. Professional accountants are generally very flexible and can be hired by the hour. Furthermore, when you outsource your business’s accounting and bookkeeping services, you won’t have to worry about cover the cost of any employee benefits, such as medical insurance, sick pay, etc.
Here are some basic tips for hiring the best bookkeeper or accountant:
- Check references.
- Research their previous experience.
- Ensure the professional has training in the latest accounting technology and software suites.
- Ensure the professional is qualified in all accounting procedures and policies.
- Check that the professional can communicate financial lingo clearly in a way that you understand.
- Ensure the professional is sociable and not just a tax robot.
History Of Our Company
We started our journey locally in 1985 in Yonkers, NY. Over the years we gradually expanded digitally and across America, specializing in accounting and tax consulting.
We now offer complete business solutions, including audits, bookkeeping, debt settlements and consulting. We currently provide services to more than 700 companies from our headquarters in Yonkers and our branch office in the Dominican Republic.
Our primary focuses are audit assistance, tax consulting, income tax filing and corporate setups. Our network of expert staff located both aboard and in the USA provide a sophistication level much higher than our competitors.
Grow your business without stressing about your finances.
Call us today or contact us via our website if you require any professional help with accounting and bookkeeping tasks.