3 Useful Tips For Hiring A Business Accountant

The word accountant is usually used as an umbrella term to describe all professionals specializing in auditing, taxation, accounting & bookkeeping, business consultation, investment, mergers & acquisitions etc. In reality though, the accounting profession is split into many different specialties and each practitioner serves one or more niches or sub-niches, hence the emergence of defined career titles like auditor, tax accountant, financial advisor, investment consultant and so many others. Depending on your accounting needs, you can hire/contract any of these professionals. They all come with different but impressive credentials that highlight their competence and qualifications, scope of work and specialty, licensing and certification, professional experience, career status, and legal and regulatory standing. Always consider the following important tips when contracting one.

 

Qualifications And Licensing

 

The accounting profession is defined by a set of academic principles and industry doctrines, which must be learnt and assessed before you can qualify for an accounting license. In order to become a professional accountant, you must pass various theoretical exams and practical tests, and also acquire specific skills in line with your specialty. The first step when hiring a business accountant is to check and verify their qualifications with regard to the financial project at hand. The easiest way to do this is by looking at their academic credentials and also their industry certifications. For instance, tax accountants will obviously have pursued tax-related studies and passed the required tax exams. And you can verify all this very easily by retrieving their academic credentials in a background check. Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) are certified by the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) after passing the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination (Uniform CPA Exam), which is set by their professional organization, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Practicing licenses are obtained at the state level following a rigorous vetting process.

 

Competence And Experience

 

As insinuated above, the accounting field is incredibly vast and hence its professionals tend to specialize on one or several related niches. In order to select the best accountant for your project, you need to choose the most competent and the one with the highest experience with regard to your accounting project. After verifying his academic credentials and practicing licenses, the next step is to ensure that the prospective accountant is highly competent and experienced in your field of interest. His past career record will reflect his level of experience and also his reputation in that niche. You only need to conduct a background check to confirm all this. Accounting specialties are also categorized by industry, such as manufacturing, mining, healthcare, IT, etc, and also by the type of clients served, local, multinationals, public corporations, small businesses, and so on. The good news is that most accounting firms combine all kinds of business and financial services in their portfolio such that one company can manage to offer tax returns, business consultation, investment advice etc, to all kinds of clients and covering all types of industries.

 

Cost Vs. Quality

 

The other vital factor when contracting an accountant is the cost of service delivery. Before you hire any accounting professional, you should do some market research to ascertain the prevailing service rates or charges in your industry of interest. You can get all this information by talking to various Clifton NJ estate planning and accounting companies regarding their billing policies. You should factor in the size of your project, competence of the firm based on its industry reputation and other credentials, tax execution strategy, time schedule, and other contractual terms and conditions — when negotiating the cost of the project.

 



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