Question:
How can I reduce my accounting costs?
Every year I give my accountant a copy of my MYOB data file with all the work already entered - and yet he still charges me thousands of dollars to prepare my tax return. Why is it so expensive and is there anything I can do to reduce the cost?
Answer:
This is an important question, and many small business owners don’t realise the amount of work that is involved in “proving” a set of accounts. As professional bookkeepers, Imprest Business Services play a pivotal role in preparing our clients’ accounts – which does not stop at simply entering the data. In order to verify the account balances we need to perform a whole range of checks and adjustments, including:
Reviewing Balance Sheet items
Reviewing Profit & Loss items
Reconciling/Reviewing loan accounts
Reconciling/Reviewing GST
Reconciling/Reviewing Income Tax instalments
Reconciling/Reviewing Debtors
Reconciling/Reviewing Creditors
Reviewing prepayments
Reviewing Entertainment expenses
Reconciling/Reviewing Wages, Super, PAYG Withholding
Reconciling Other Payables
Reviewing Suspense accounts
Send information to Accountants & respond to queries
Process End of Year Journals.
Once all these checks are complete and the accounts have been reconciled, only then can we be confident in sending the data on to our client's accountant. Once again though, our role is not to simply forward the data – we must also communicate the checks we have performed and provide copies of the reconciliations. This will ensure that clients are not paying for the same reconciliations to be performed twice! We find that by communicating more with our client’s accountant and by providing a consistent format of reporting, most accountants are more than willing to accept that our work meets the required accounting standards, which ultimately results in lower accounting costs for our clients.
If you think your accountant is charging too much, it is a good idea to meet with them and find out what areas they are spending the most time on. Perhaps they can pinpoint problem areas in your accounts which may need addressing or tidying up. Perhaps your industry has specific regulations or accounting conventions which add to your compliance costs. If you have a bookkeeper, involve them in this process and make sure you get their input too.
If you are considering changing accountants, Imprest, in partnership with ABN Tax, can provide very competitive quotes for our bookkeeping clients on all your accounting needs. For more information check out the “
Tax” information from our services page and see if this service is right for you.
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Imprest Business Services are your professional bookkeeping team. For more information on what we can achieve for you, see our Services page.
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Tax
