You may run your own business in Nashville as a solo freelancer or sole proprietor. That would make you your own executive, as well as your own employee. Fulfilling both roles requires considerable time and focus, and if you’ve been trying to juggle a third role as your own bookkeeper or accountant, you should probably consider enlisting the aid of a financial expert.
Here are several signs you need to work with your own CPA.
Was tax time taxing?
Did you scramble to meet the tax filing deadline? Did you pour a significant number of hours into organizing your paperwork, not to mention reading up on all the ins and outs of reporting?
According to IRS figures, business filers usually spend 24 hours working on their tax returns. This includes 13 hours for checking records and six hours just for completing the form alone. While this may not sound like a massive amount of time, it is still time that takes you off your core projects and operations that bring in money.
A professional CPA can help not only to cut down the hours you spend on taxes, but also to strategize how you can spend less money on them.
Do you have trouble staying on top of records outside tax season?
Let’s say you can complete your returns quickly, or that the time you spend on them comes at no great loss. Good for you—but how efficiently do you work with records the rest of the year?
Even without meaning to, you might simply be letting your bills, invoices, and receipts pile up without truly organizing them. Can you easily pull up a series of receipts to examine expenses when you need to? Can you quickly review a history of client transactions without trying to track down files for a couple of hours?
If you’re having trouble efficiently pulling these numbers up, you might need someone to help you do better at it.
Can you confidently interpret your finances?
Good record-keeping enables you to answer basic questions like:
- Which clients bring you the most revenue?
- Which supplies drive up your expenses?
- How much do you earn from month to month?
But while you can read the basic sums, a CPA can dig deeper into the figures and tell you what to do about them. It’s one thing to have your numbers in order; it’s another to understand what they mean for your business.
With professional analysis, you can spot how your revenues are trending, make sound projections for development, and plug in holes in the budget without causing other leaks.
The bottom line
These are just some of the telltale signs that you need to get in touch with an accountant soon. You may feel compelled to hold off if you are just starting to freelance and still have a low volume of financial activity, if you are operating your business out of your personal account, or if you are just freelancing “on the side.”
Still, you may approach a trusted Nashville professional like Evan Hutcheson, CPA, LLC to advise you how best to organize your finances in the meantime, and help you manage them when the time is right.
Sources:
Freelancers: When to Bring in Bookkeeping Support, Forbes.com
Does Your Business Need a Bookkeeper, Controller or CFO?
File an Extension, Pay on Time: A Key Tax Reminder from Your CPA Firm
