| By :
Nadine Davis
Copyright (c) 2010 Nadine Davis When your accountants see you coming with an armful of papers and a wild look in your eyes, do they bolt the door, or are they kind enough to let you ruin their day to prepare your tax return? This is no way to treat your Accountants who would, if you just asked them, offer you much more to help grow your business than tax advice. While accountants do prepare tax returns, they also do a many other things. This list shows the main functions of accounting and accountants: > Record all transactions for a specified accounting period, following the accepted standards for double-entry bookkeeping. > Reconcile accounts and bank statements to find and correct errors or omissions. > Produce accurate financial and management reports. > Design forecasting tools such as cash flow projections and break-even analyses. > Prepare budgets and establish monitoring processes to compare budgets against actual income and expenditure. > Give advice on tax laws and prepare and lodge tax and GST returns. > Monitor and manage cash flow by following up outstanding accounts, and arranging corporate finance and overdrafts. > Perform financial due diligence checks for either the purchase or sale of business assets. > Establish control mechanisms to ensure statutory financial obligations are met. Accountants undergo years of specialised training to earn the right to the qualification of Certified Practising Accountant (CPA). In the way of the world today, an individual with an accounting qualification has the option to choose to keep within the tradition of established practices, or could branch into any of the other functions noted above. Corporate management relies on information given to them by their accountants to make decisions, and small business owners can also utilise these skills to help them develop strategic and business plans. These tools are no longer exclusive to large businesses. All business owners need to look longer-term at the economic climate, future government policies affecting business and other strategic issues, and can confidently turn to their accountant for assistance in these areas. In the past, the language of accountants was typically terms such as income and expenditure, profit and loss, balance sheets, journals, ledgers, etc. - the "nitty-gritty" of bookkeeping. Now, since the arrival of computerised accounts using accounting software, these assignments have been surrendered to competent bookkeepers, allowing accountants to create a new language - forward planning, strategic alliance, lead indicators, projections, key performance indicators and a host of other terms. If you are confining your Accountant to only preparing your tax return, you are missing the opportunity to use their expertise to grow your business.
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