Why Your Accountant is So Expensive!

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Why Your Accountant is So Expensive!
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• Have you ever wondered why your accountant
  charges so much even though you're paying a
  bookkeeper? Your accountant doesnt even pretend
  to be grateful that youve made life so easy in
  fact, theyre on a permanent war footing with
  your bookkeeper.
• Your accountant says its your bookkeepers fault
  that your accounting costs arent falling. Your
  bookkeeper says she doesnt know what the
  accountant could be talking about. Shes
  diligently entered all the data, youve watched
  her do it every month. It cant possibly be her.

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• Except it can. And in 90 percent of cases, it is.
• We know thats a hard truth to face. Youve known
  your bookkeeper for so long you cant remember
  when she started. She comes to the office every
  month and chops down that pile of unentered
  receipts and invoices. Things only get more than
  a few weeksa month at mostbehind when shes on
  holiday or one of the kids is sick. But shes
  like a friend. You and your staff have coffee
  with her, you know about her family, shes come
  to the Christmas party.

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• You probably cant say the same about your
  accountant.
• And because your life got easier when someone
  else started dealing with that mountain of
  paperwork and data entry, youve probably never
  asked whether your bookkeeper has any
  qualifications. She advertised herself as a
  bookkeeper, you liked her, you booked her to come
  in once a month, the paper mountain got smaller,
  and shes been coming ever since.
• But theres no mandatory training for
  bookkeepers. Anyone can set up a bookkeeping
  business, and its attractive be your own boss,
  flexible work you can fit around other
  commitments.

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• What you dont see, your accountant does.
  Unqualified bookkeepers make mistakes that are
  time-consuming (therefore expensive) to fix. Your
  books have to be gone through with a fine-tooth
  comb because theyre full of mistakes. You think
  youre sending your accountant clean records that
  should take half an hour to tick off. What your
  accountant sees is still a shoe box of receipts,
  its just not in paper form. And that virtual
  shoe box needs to be unpacked and re-sorted.
• That extra accounting expense is just the visible
  cost. The invisible cost is that you could have a
  much better view of your business, information
  you can use to make decisions.

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• In business, visibility means financial
  visibility. When you know your financials, you
  can make informed decisions. And when you need to
  make crucial decisions ever more frequently, that
  means knowing your financials to the day, not the
  month. Relying on months-old financial
  information is like trying to drive forwards
  using the rear-view mirror.
• When your bookkeeper drops by monthly to do data
  entry, your books are at least that much out of
  date. Not that it matters how recent they are if
  theyre not accurate in the first place.

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• It might always have been like this, but it
  doesnt have to be. With cloud-based systems and
  automated data entry, your books can be almost
  up-to-the-minute. And when qualified BAS and tax
  agents are preparing your books, supervised by
  managers who are themselves accountants, your
  bookkeeper and your existing accountant can work
  productively.

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• Bookkeepers and accountants being at war is a
  common circumstance, but it isnt inevitable. If
  accountants wanted to do bookkeeping, theyd have
  bookkeepers on staff and try to persuade you to
  use them. If bookkeepers wanted to be
  accountants, they could take the training and
  qualify. So if your accountant has a problem with
  your bookkeeper, theres likely something to it.

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• In our experience, when accountants don't have to
  clean up books that are supposedly already clean,
  they save about 30 percent of their time.
• Your natural instinct might be to find a
  qualified bookkeeper who will work seamlessly
  with your accountantthats usand use it to
  negotiate a reduction in your accountants fees.
  Weve also seen, however, has been that the real
  benefit unlocked by getting your books
  up-to-the-minute and accurate is that you can
  take your relationship with your accountant up a
  level.

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• Your accountant can use the time to liaise with
  your bookkeeper without adding to your bill. And
  more importantly, your accountant will have time
  to work with you on your business. Instead of
  wasting time (and your money) double-checking
  what should have been done right in the first
  place, your accountant can be helping you improve
  the vital statistics of your business (like
  cashflow) and advising you on achieving your
  vision for the business.

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• If that vision is to have a modern, competitive
  business, then you need to be working with
  suppliers and advisors who are modern and
  competitive. When it comes to bookkeeping, that
  means
• Showing a professional commitment to their work
  by getting qualified
• Being managed by qualified accountants

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• Practising what they preach when it comes to
  following processes that make sense today, not
  processes that worked 10 years ago
• If that sounds like the way youd like your
  bookkeeper to work, call us today!