Article by Sarah Shore
As a company, you stand to face large fines and possibly even legal action if your accounts are not kept in good order. The bigger your business is, the bigger the problems will be that you will have unless you employ a good accountant, but this does not mean that smaller companies can get away without one. Even self employed individuals regularly employ the services of regular or property accountants from time to time, especially around the end of the tax year when a tax return must be prepared. Large corporations may even want to employ a team of accountants who work in different areas of accountancy.
One such area is property accounting. Property accountants are responsible for keeping a well documented record of all the property that a company owns or has leased out. This can be assets such as equipment, buildings or anything else that comes under the umbrella of company property. Property accountants record the locations, values and descriptions of all company property and keep this list updated on a regular basis.
If your company owns or leases a lot of property it is absolutely essential to have one or more property accountants on board to keep a record of financial information including cash management tasks, to consolidate all of the different investments within one fund, to prepare monthly bank settlements for all company bank accounts, to prepare an annual tax return and much more besides.
For a small or medium sized business, the property accountant may be able to carry out all of the financial accounting tasks that need to be done. For a large company however this may simply be too much work for one person to get done and it can help to also employ the services of a general accountant. Usual tasks include preparing quarterly financial statements, an important document for all shareholders, and calculating and preparing monthly, quarterly and annual cash flow statements.
Once you have established the importance of employing a good accountant, you next need to actually find an accountant. You can take on full time employees or you can use a freelance accountant, both are valid options depending on your needs. You may even choose to employ permanent accountants and then take on additional freelancers during extremely busy periods such as the end of the tax year, to lighten the workload and to ensure that everything gets done on time. There are now, for example, unavoidable fixed fines for submitting your company tax return late.
It is possible to find accountants online through certain websites whose sole purpose is to bring companies or individuals together with accountants. Otherwise you can also find accountants through the more typically method of posting job adverts online with job sites, but this is both more expensive and more time consuming. With online accountant search websites you may find yourself with an accountant at hand within just a few days.
Due to the legal and financial importance of good bookkeeping, it is essential that you find the right accountant. You do not want to be overpaying for an extremely qualified and experienced accountant when you only need a small amount of help and are on a tight budget, but similarly you do not want to choose the cheapest accountant available only to find that they lack the knowledge or experience that you need. In the worst case scenario this may lead to mistakes in your reports or tax return that can have serious financial consequences.
It is therefore essential that to find an accountant who is perfect for you and your company, you interview a few different candidates before you choose one to be sure you are making the right decision. Find out which qualifications they have. A CPA qualification is very well respected as the exam is difficult to pass, so this shows that they do know what they are talking about. Other requirements are a good mathematical knowledge, the ability to compute financial data and taxes, experience with relevant spreadsheet software and preferably some years of industry experience.
Whether you are looking for general accountants, property accountants or another type of accountant, it is important to check their qualifications and employment history to ensure that you find an accountant capable of keeping your records in good order and who will always meet deadlines. To find a good accountant, London is probably your best bet, as there are so many well qualified accountants and accountancy courses running in the city.
About the Author
Sarah Shore writes articles for Space City, who are a London based TV commercial production company. Space City are heavily involved with brand response and direct response TV ad production, and have done excellent quality work for both private companies and charities. They run a lot of their TV commercials production in house, having both a casting studio and a rehearsal studio, giving them complete control over the creation of their adverts from start to finish.
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