How to find the right tax accountant near me?
Follow these simple steps to ensure you get the right tax accountant your business deserves.
- Follow Reputation
- Qualifications
- Communications skills
- Sound Understanding
- Accounting Online
- Paperless Business
- Reliable tax accountant
- Proactive tax accountant
- Affordable services
Maybe you think you understand accounting and tax, but there is nothing like an expert handling things for you. Most of us make the mistake of hiring a tax accountant for a few days once a year which can result in many issues that are overlooked, unresolved or don’t allow for the proactive decision-making that’s required in business. This is especially true if you are an entrepreneur or you are planning to grow your business. You and your business would benefit significantly more if you hire a tax accountant that is a regular extension to you and your team. You will notice that when you are on top of your finances with tax being minimised and your compliance lodged on time with no hidden surprises, your business flourishes too. While there are so many benefits of hiring a great tax accountant, finding the tight tax accountant near you can be extremely difficult. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you set out to look for that magic tax accountant.
- Follow Reputation
Most people who are working hard in their field naturally have a good reputation. If most of the clients are satisfied with the tax accountant’s work, then it speaks for their skills. Therefore, seek accountants who have built up an undeniably trustworthy reputation. You will usually find online reviews and peer reviews to testify for their skills. Their current and even past clients will speak very highly of them. Within google maps, you will be able to read reviews of the tax accountants within your area.
- Qualifications
Currently in Australia, there are over 12,000 registered accounting firms. However, there are up to 160,000 accountants available. This raises the risk of choosing a low-quality tax accountant with so many options. You cannot overlook the qualifications of a tax accountant who is going to be the Trusted Advisor to your company. Therefore, always do a quick background check for simple things such as Chartered Accountants qualification along with registration as a tax agent. This will limit the risk of finding a non-qualified tax accountant.
- Communication Skills
A good tax accountant should have excellent interpersonal and communication skills. After all, communication is key to a healthy relationship between the tax accountant and the client. If the tax agent is able to communicate either via written or verbal complicated terms in simple words for you, then you will have a greater understanding and be in the driver’s seat of your business decisions, without feeling overwhelmed. The issue here is, tax accountants in industry are generally not the best communicators. During the initial meeting with the tax accountant, don’t be afraid to ask some tough questions to see how they can explain a complex situation that may affect you. Ask who you will be dealing with directly and have some conversations on tax related matters to ensure you are comfortable they can communicate to you effectively.
- Sound Understanding
“There can be no progress without investment in time” The best tax agents and tax accountants take their time to fully understand the enterprise and where it stands financially. This helps them understand the business goals and its stage of the business life-cycle so they properly plan out the tax strategy and accounting framework. A tax accountant who understands your personal goals within your business will also be able to guide you towards the business you desire.
- Cloud Accounting
Xero has become a tool trusted for many taxpayer services. It helps to build an honest relationship with clients so that things proceed safely in a transparent method. This is why you should seek for a tax accountant who uses Xero and the automation capabilities it has, that are now an essential part of the accounting world. You will feel safer when all of your data is visible to you online and you have live-reporting.
- Paperless Business
The next question you should ask; find a tax accountant near me which is paperless? Since everything has gone online, so has the tax accounting system. Sending documents via post is timely, costly and bad for the environment. With the digital world, came speed. Leverage online products to enhance efficiency and effectiveness, and allow for superior reporting and communicating. All Business documents should be sent for digital signing, even business tax returns. Make sure you ask this question to the prospective tax accountant to ensure you aren’t signing up for a 19th century paper punish.
- Reliable Tax Accountant
Since you are going to be investing in a tax accountant, it is of utmost importance that you are able to trust them. If you want to excel at your business and make the most profit, then you need a tax agent who will make tax lodgements on time and inform you about potential upcoming bills before they even arrive. This might sound very basic to you but unfortunately, some accountants haven’t adjusted to the new online world and haven’t made the most of the technology to ensure all lodgements occur in a timely manner with the tax position optimised via useful tools and resources online.
- Proactive Tax Accountant
You should never wait for the problem to arise before you can do something about it. Instead, a proactive tax accountant will foresee upcoming common business problems and have a strategy to turn these problems into opportunities, or at the very least, have an effective plan to manage them. Efficient tax accountants will always help you navigate in a way that you never land your business in crisis. As soon as things are dealt with on time, they will prevent any mishaps. This sounds simple, but most people who run a business are unable to manoeuvre through the tax landscape and only contact tax agents when they are in trouble. By having a monthly fixed fee plan, you will receive ongoing tax advice to ensure you are always in the loop and always in control of your finances.
- Affordable Services
The best tax accountants will offer you affordable prices along with transparent fees and services. One of the biggest complaints we hear from clients about their prior accountants, is they received large bulky fees whenever they called their tax accountant. Understandably, getting charged for every phone call or email is not ideal. A fixed monthly fee is a great way to add certainty to your accounting fees whilst getting access to your tax accountant throughout the year when the tough decisions and planning needs to be made. POP Business offers fixed-fee monthly accounting packages to enhance businesses right across Australia. For more details on pricing, click here. Now that you know what to look for, here’s some tips to find the right tax accountant for your business:
- You can always look up tax accountants near me, and your Google Maps will show you the nearby accountants that you can contact.
- Once you have a list of different tax agents on Google, you should also go through the review section for each one. Most people write their honest experience with the company or agent, and this will help you shortlist them.
- Another way that you can come across the best taxpaying services is by using referrals. Your friends and family will have suggestions or recommendations to make. This will further help you narrow doing your options of who to contact.
- One key tip is to ask the accountant about their experience. You can make a call and ask them if they have had previous experience of dealing with a similar business to yours. You will feel more comfortable if they know what they are dealing with.
- The first meeting is critical with the tax accountant needing to show a genuine interest in your business. Ask the tough questions and see how well they communicate. There are many out there so don’t settle for a bad experience.
Why you should work with your Tax Advisor on a Monthly Basis Instead of getting in touch with your tax accountant once a year, you should hire someone who knows and understands the ins and outs of your business. There are multiple benefits of this including advice on capital allocation, effective planning, tax minimisation and expert advice in making sense of your financial data. This means that your tax agent will inform you about the financial situation as it is shaping around you. You will also access to your tax accountant when you are about to make those critical business decisions, without being hit with large lumpy bills. Say you want to upgrade your business strategy in the middle of the year; you will want tax accountant’s expertise before taking the necessary steps towards your success. The tax agent will structure a model for you and advise you how to move on technically instead of making any decisions that might not work. Certainty of cashflow is a critical element for business survival. A fixed monthly fee allows for more effective cashflow planning and you will be able to forecast more accurately. POP Services POP Business is a Chartered Accounting firm that has reputable accountants who can be hired for monthly services. POP ensures that the fees and services are completely transparent, and the clients feel value for money. This is evident by most new business coming direct by referrals from happy clients, with POP Business having to spend very minimal on marketing. You will be guided through each step of the journey without any hidden fees to come and bite you later on. At POP Business, the tax advisor system has enabled high-calibre, trustworthy and hardworking tax accountants to be hired, with sound experience in the field to seamlessly guide you through even the most turbulent times. By having great processes, POP Business ensures their Business Framework can be applied to all clients with quality services delivered to optimise and enhance the clients’ business’. In a nutshell, there are many things to be taken into account while hiring a tax accountant. You might feel overwhelmed at the beginning, but you will be able to squeeze out savings that you didn’t even know existed before and take your enterprise to the next level. Put simply, when searching for a tax accountant near me today, do your research and choose carefully, it may make or break your business.
