Do I Need An Accountant? | Accounting Services Guide

Do I Need An Accountant? Accountants, affectionately known as bean counters, occupy a vast array of roles and specialties. Once upon a time they wore brown suits, thick rimmed black glasses and sat in a dark corner office hammering away on a calculator. Today the scene is somewhat different. Your accountant should be an active part of your business and most definitely have their finger on the pulse of what is happening in your industry as they help you to remain competitive and profitable.

It’s easy to be in a constant state of overwhelm as a business owner. To avoid this you’ll need to leverage all of the things you could be doing but can get someone else to do. For many businesses essential financial planning and reviews just don’t get done. It’s just a case of head down, bum up and hope for the best. Of greatest danger is when lots of sales are being made but the cash isn’t flowing in. How many businesses manage the financial side of their business simply by whether or not there is money in the bank?

It has been said that what gets measured gets results. This can be applied equally to staff, product sales and to the financial side of your business.

You have a number of choices:

Do it yourself - Even if you can manage the accounting function yourself you need to ask yourself if that is the best use of your time. What are you sacrificing in order to “do the books” yourself? Could your time be better spent increasing sales, improving the staff morale or maybe even spending more time with your family?
                              

In House Accountant – If your business is large enough you may choose to hire an in house accountant. The upside of this approach is that they will come to know your business intimately and are on call whenever needed.

Outsourced Accountant - Most small business will take this approach. There are many benefits. For example the accountant is being constantly exposed to many businesses and you will get the benefit of this added expertise indirectly. Consider the benefits of leveraging your time by sharing the accounting responsibilities of your business with a qualified and accredited accountant that has the capability to provide the accounting services that you need.


Contact us for In house or outsourced accountants visit our website RRAccountants.co.uk or send us email info@rraccountants.co.uk for further detail.

5 Simple Tax Tips for Individuals and Small Businesses

1.    Avoid Stress, Save Time and Money

Be Careful and Thorough. Avoid common problems like illegible hand writing, mathematical errors, transposition of numbers, and missing signature. These little oversights can end up costing you time and money if you are slapped with penalties.

2. Get Organized.

Allow enough time to get your stuff in order. For example, properly categorizing your expenditures now will save you a lot of time later. Come tax time, you will be glad you grouped your expenditures by category (match it with verbiage on Schedule C if self-employed) and not by month or name of vendor payee.

3. Be Flexible.

Timing your cash flow can save you money. In other words, always accelerate deductions in the year you are doing taxes for and always defer income, if you can, into the next year, thereby lowering your current year’s tax bite. If you fall into the Alternative Minimum Tax, you may want a professional to advise you.

4. Know When To Ask for Help.

Tax preparation tools like TurboTax and TaxCut are great, but people with anything more than a straight W-2 (including anyone with even the smallest business Schedule C) should be aware of the limitations of these software programs.

5. Don’t be Penny Wise and Pound Foolish.

Hiring an expert CPA or EA to prepare your return is a small annual investment that can pay off big! Don’t do your taxes yourself unless you are a straight W-2 wage earner that takes the Standard Deductions (in other words, someone who doesn’t itemize or have any unreimbursed employee business expenses).

For more detail please visit our website RRAccountants.co.uk

Learn - A Better Bookkeeping Service Part - 1

Introduction to double-entry bookkeeping

The first thing to appreciate is that many people first encounter 'debits' and 'credits' by having a bank account; but these terms are used from the bank's perspective and not from that of the account holder. So, when you pay money into your account, you are in fact lending your money to the bank and they say 'you are in credit'.  The bank has a creditor - you - to whom they owe some money.  But from your perspective, you have a debtor - the bank - who owes you money. The bank has a liability (a creditor, a debt)

and therefore you, the account holder, have an asset (a debtor). In other words, to say

 'I am in credit' when you have some money in your account, is technically incorrect in bookkeeping terms.

This is because the language of double-entry bookkeeping is spoken in the 'first person' for whom the records are being maintained, and not the bank's.  So, if a business has some money in its bank account, it is not 'in credit'; rather, as we have seen, it has an asset which is a debit balance.  So the business is in fact 'in debit' with the bank.

 The double-entry bookkeeping system in universally credited to Luca Pacioli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_Pacioli) 

who in 1494 published the book "Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalità" containing a 27-page treatise on bookkeeping.  However, perhaps the earliest evidence of Double-entry bookkeeping is found in the "Farolfi ledger" of 1299-1300. 

Business transactions were recorded using this method by early traders because it was a reliable means of easuring profits and recording cash owed from customers and to suppliers.  The 'books of ccount' (books) of a trader consisted of separate pages for each account, bound together in 'ledgers'.  Typically, there was a 'sales ledger'; recording sales to and monies received from customers (and therefore a means of establishing balances owed from them), and a 'purchase ledger'; recording purchases and monies paid to suppliers (and therefore a means of establishing balances owing to them). All the other pages required to record expenses and balances for bank, stock and assets used in the business were grouped into a third book, called the 'general ledger' (or 'nominal ledger').  Each of the pages in these 3 ledgers would have a separate debit and credit column to record the

transactions, as each occurred. The mantra of 'every debit has an opposing credit' is

central to double-entry bookkeeping. 

For Better Bookkeeping Services in Birmingham Click Here.

R R Accountants - Accounting Services in Birmingham Yardley, DUDLEY and StratFord

R R Accounting & Bookkeeping Services from VAT returns to Self Assessment in Birmingham, Yardley, DUDLEY and StratFord, we can help. With us taking on your companies' accounts, you can concentrate on building and running your business without worrying about your bookkeeping and taxation responsibilities.

Our service is flexible and friendly, providing honest and frank advice and providing a reliable hand on your accounts. Among the services R R Accountants LTD Accounting, Bookkeeping services in Birmingham, Self Assessment and Payroll Services can offer;

Taxation advice

ATAnnual returns

Payroll Bookkeeping Sage accounting

Personal taxation

Business start ups

Self assessment and more.

Call us 0121 766 5477 today to find out more about our services or to book your free initial consultation. You can call us on the local number above or either of our two other numbers

01217 712 122 

01384 230 706

Alternatively you can email using the form on our 'Contact Us' page. We look forward to hearing from you.

You're looking for Accountants in Birmingham, Yardley, DUDLEY, StratFord to help you with your accounts or bookkeeping, call R R Accountants LTD. Our dedicated and highly trained teams have the knowledge and experience to take on any accountancy problem. We are happy to work with clients across Birmingham, whether you're a small business, partnership, sole trader or a limited company. With our expertise working for you, you can rest assured that your accounts are in safe hands.