Why Now?

So you’re starting or currently running a small to medium-sized business! It’s a well-known fact that most small companies with limited budgets and multiple demands in these difficult economic times simply don’t think about hiring an accountant or a business consultant until a problem develops.

How and when should a startup or young and growing business decide to choose financial accounting, tax advice, software set-up, and business improvement consulting? Procrastinating or going cheap on this decision now can cost your company dearly later on.

Just as a professional race car driver has a pit crew to allow him to stay focused on the race and not be bogged down with necessary but time-consuming maintenance and repairs, successful companies assemble a support staff allowing them to focus on moving and growing their core business. A medium-sized business may have full-time staff or some part-timers but even a start-up needs specialists from the start if they hope to survive the transition from birth to established business. Nobody ever won a race while also performing all the tasks of the pit crew. Never.

When?

That’s your call. But with complex tax laws passed every year you need an experienced tax professional to guide you through the tax maze. With our fast-moving business environment, if your sales remain flat and your costs creep up, you also need a consultant to help you build a better business and overcome your daily challenges. An outsider can provide an essential “reality-check”, helping you identify errors of commission or omission.

How To Hire

Common sense is as good a guide as any.

• Identify your 3 most pressing issues: it could be a need to increase sales, or to develop a closer rapport with customers, or to develop your business into a turn-key operation, or to do careful tax planning at the beginning of the year and file your returns on time.

• Make sure that the person in your business who works with the accountant or consultant feels comfortable with him. Do these people get along?

A good generalist accountant or consultant will take a much broader view than one with a narrow specialty. Make sure the person you work with has handled similar transactions or activities. You want someone who’s been down the road before. Getting this wrong will cost your business time and money. Don’t skimp.

How do I know if the Accounting or Business Consulting Advice is Good?

It’s impossible to know whether your professional is doing a good job unless you get into serious trouble because of something done wrong. Unless you’re in the profession, you can really only know the truth when you’re receiving good service. Tips include:

• Watch for hype. Over-promising, such as guaranteeing you’ll receive a no-change tax audit – is not a good sign of professionalism.

• Ask questions. Get the names of clients in a similar industry. If clients are good-sized and the relationships are long-term, that’s a good sign. Find out if deadlines are met and for quantifiable results.

What kind of Accountant or Business Consultant should I hire?

Hire someone who already gets good results in handling the issues you are trying to solve.

You can choose to:

• Hire someone from a firm. One person who is your contact who can also recommend specialists in the firm for any particular issue.

• Hire a sole practitioner with the background and resources to be good at both Accounting and Business Consulting. This works if you choose someone with a broad and deep knowledge base built up from years of experience in diverse areas – and who can recommend experts in other areas as needed.