Running a business isn’t easy. You constantly have to be running cost-benefit analyses, and you don’t necessarily have the resources to delegate everything you’d like to. It’s tempting, when possible, to do everything yourself. Remember, however, that your time is money, and any time you spend doing something outside your area of expertise is time not spent doing what you’re best at. Accountants can help you with all the integral financial pieces of business you might not be aware of.

Tax Time

When people think about accountants, taxes are often the first thing that springs to mind. You can certainly hire an accountant to help with your taxes when it comes time to file, but it can be even more useful to hire an accountant before that.

Having an accountant by your side throughout the year can help you take advantage of tax benefits you didn’t even realize were available to you. This can help guide your purchasing decisions. Unsure whether or not you should get renewable energy to power your store? Your accountant can help you crunch the numbers on green financial incentives. Unsure about selling a particular piece of property? Your accountant can help talk you through capital gains tax.

Optimization

What’s working and what isn’t? Those are questions you always have to ask yourself as a business owner. It goes back to the premise of constant cost-benefit analysis. The tricky thing is, any look at your cash flow is only going to give you a snapshot; the trend of how your cash flow changes over time is much more important.

Let’s say, for example, you just put a new product on the market. You’ve spent X amount on R&D, production, advertising, deployment, and other related costs. If you were to look at profit vs. cost immediately, the product would seem like a terrible idea. 12 months down the line, however, you might be looking pretty good. Accountants can help you predict profitability and analyze trends.

Debt Management

Understanding which debts to pay off in what order, what loans to take out, and how to manage contracts with suppliers can be burdensome. Accountants can help you with all this, crunching the numbers and creating a plan to help you manage your debt load while growing your company. Their experience with financial institutions can also help guide you when you’re deciding how much debt you should take on and when.

These are just three of the many ways an accountant can help you better manage your business. By using accounting services, you’ll find efficiencies that you wouldn’t know about otherwise, and these efficiencies can more than pay for the accountant’s fees. Looking for a professional tax accountant in Winnipeg? Get in touch with Compass Accounting.