Have A Business? Use An Accountant to Help With Financial Planning
Financial Planning With Your Accountant
Everybody who starts a business has strengths and weaknesses, things they know how to do and things they must learn. The most challenging aspects usually revolves around financial planning for your business. Your financial situation, from capital reserves to revenue and cash flows, is the core of your business. Putting together a plan to succeed and a system to monitor your performance is integral to the success of your business. An accountant can help you with knowing what information to enter into your books daily, how to set up your books, and the business metrics you need to monitor to assess your business’ health.
Why Use An Accountant?
There are a few good reasons to use an accountant to help you with your financial planning. It is extremely important to get your books and accounting procedures set up right at the start of your business. The proverb about “garbage in, garbage out” was never more true. If you don’t enter your data correctly, track it, know what it says, then all the financial plans you make based on those numbers will be faulty. You also need an account to assist you with interpreting the tax laws and other regulations that apply to your business.
If you have real estate you are managing, an accountant can also be an asset to assist you with cash flow analysis, mortgage calculations, and analyses of variable scenarios. This is true if you own buildings you lease to others, lease your space or own your own building. A building can be one of your biggest capital assets and using its value in extended financial planning is key to your financial health.
Taxes – The Domain of Accountants
Using a CPA or accountant, such as those from Des Moines Accountants, is indispensable when you do your taxes. But to be effective, the accountant should be involved early in your financial planning so that you can make the right decisions to minimize your tax liabilities. Often when a decision is made, the tax implications and liabilities can not be changed after the fact. By involving your accountant you will be able to better anticipate second, third, and fourth order effects on your financial situation from a variety of business decisions. This is even more true if you have major investments, major business changes, life changing events, or substantial growth in revenues.
Don’t be discouraged, however, as many people in business for years have just as much difficulty in doing their own financial planning as startups. Getting your books, financial systems and taxes set up with an accountant or CPA from CustomOne CFO & Controllers will assist you greatly in your financial planning. Based on the data from your system, they will explain your financials in an easy way to help you understand the issues facing your business. Then they will help you construct a solid financial plan, and help you monitor your business to follow the plan to success.
