Small business owners who do not have a professional accountant often try to hire a freelance bookkeeper to manage their books. They set aside all their bills in a box and speak to tell themselves that at the end of the year they'll find an expert to put them in order. It seems that now there are more freelance bookkeepers compared to certified accountants for Canadian Corporations. Small business owners don't always understand the difference between a freelance bookkeeper and a certified professional bookkeeper.
Hiring a Freelance Bookkeeper Can Involve the Following Risks:
- Lack of professionalism
- Lack of access to paid versions of accounting software applications
- Limited access to accounting resources
- Unable to work under pressure and meet deadlines
Benefits of Hiring an Accounting Firm
Small business owners have the choice of performing accounting-related tasks in-house, they can even hire a freelance bookkeeper, or they can engage an accounting firm for better management of their accounting functions. Giving financial autonomy of your business to an accounting firm requires you to search for a credible and professional accounting firm that can manage your bookkeeping, financial statements, year-end taxes, and matters that require business consultancy services.
To get assistance from an accounting firm will save you time and money during the tax season. Working with an accounting firm will enable you to have access to different resources that can help you to manage your taxes. Whereas, a freelance bookkeeper does not have a team of professionals. Therefore, your engagement with a professional firm can get you a team of professionals on board and you don’t need to worry about bookkeeping errors.
Although, resources of the accounting firm are often wrongly perceived as a costly expense that the company could do without. However, using an accounting firm helps to better manage your business, to achieve substantial savings, and to avoid unnecessary penalties and interest charges of the CRA. The intervention of the firm's accountants allows to:
- Maximize the profitability of your business;
- Avoid unnecessary costs by respecting accounting and tax schedules;
- Save time, and consequently money, by freeing yourself from accounting, taxation, and payroll-related tasks and allow yourself to devote most of your time to the operational management of your business
Managing the accounts of your business also requires you to perform this task at your best. Professional accounting firms will have access to the latest accounting software, which they can use to help benefit your business in the best way they know.
When you hire an accounting firm for your business, you are benefiting from not just one individual but a team of experts that will help you manage your accounting and tax matters. Professional accounting firms have access to specialized accounting software and other technological tools. All professional accounting firms operate with advanced accounting software and technologies. Whereas, a freelance bookkeeper doesn’t have access to full feature accounting software as most of them rely on the trial and cracked versions of it.
One of the most common problems that small and medium-sized businesses face is not meeting their tax deadlines. This happens due to the lack of proper financial management and tax calculations at the end. There is no doubt that taxation is a complex subject. It is governed by constantly changing laws, as well as complicated procedures. Even if you explore the online tax filing option, you might miss deductions or make mistakes. As a small business owner, you don't have the time to spend the extra time understanding tax laws and calculating payments. Therefore, you need to engage an accounting firm rather than hiring a part-time freelance bookkeeper so that you make sure that you don’t miss any of your tax deadlines and streamline all your accounting documents.