If you are a founder of a company or business and have been working in it for a while, you should have as much useful information as possible. It’s good that you have questions and continue to learn about running a business.
To learn, you need to ask yourself some critical questions. The most common questions business owners have are about finances and how to manage them. Here are some questions founders should ask themselves about their company’s finances.
How often do you want to balance your books every month, quarter, or year?
There are many benefits to keeping your books balanced. Maintaining an accurate accounting system will allow you to understand the financial health of your business and know the projected growth.
Monthly Reports
Balancing your books once a month is a good idea to make sure your records match the bank records for each month. This way, you can match your cash balance with the bank statement. One benefit of a monthly financial statement is that you can easily find banking errors and fraud.
Quarterly Reports
Financial statements, balance sheets, and cash flow occur every three months. It is very common for investors, suppliers, or government agencies to request copies of quarterly financial reports. Quarterly financial statements will help you compare your income and expenses to your budget. As well as make the necessary adjustments to invest or save money.
Annual Reports
The annual report is indispensable at the end of the year in order to make decisions for the future. To make this easier, it is good to have monthly or quarterly reports that allow the organization of information. An annual analysis also allows you to maximize your tax return. Starting to collect all the financial data at the end of the year will make tax planning much easier.
Do you want the accounting firm to prepare payroll for your company?
Defining whether you want to do the payroll for your company or hire an accounting firm to do it is extremely important for the management of your company.
If you want to do the payroll yourself, you should know that it is not just a matter of multiplying the working hours by the amount of the employees’ weekly salary. Proper payroll must include compliance with federal and state taxes, tax regulations, and other laws.
Hiring an accounting firm to help you with this task could save you a lot of time and money. An accountant will take care of the payroll for your employees but also comply with the corresponding tax laws.
Small business accounting might not seem like a challenging problem, but in reality it can become quite complex. If you feel like you are losing track of how much money you owe or how much you are owed, an outsourced accountant may be able to help you avoid this.
Who should have access to the financials – just partners, all employees, or only those who need it for their job?
Financial statements provide information regarding the financial health of a business, its performance, operation, and cash flow. In a business, many users may need access to a company’s financial statements and each has a valid reason.
This information can be shared with customers, employees, governments, investors, or lenders. It is important that you know the reasons why a person or entity may request your company’s financial information so that you can make the right decision.
By law, anyone who owns company stock is entitled to receive the company’s annual financial statements without having to request them. Investors, too, cannot be denied financial reports since they need to know the returns on their investment.
A company may choose to provide financial statements to employees to increase the level of involvement and to facilitate understanding of the business.
Suppliers also require this information to decide whether it is safe to extend credit requested by a company.
No matter what business you’re in, keeping your finger on the pulse of your business’s finances will help you come tax season, and beyond. Whether you do monthly, quarterly, or annual reports, balancing your books and making sure the money is where it should be is the job of any good accountant or accounting firm.