While shopping around for a business tax service, you need to know what to watch out for. There are a lot of issues that can arise with annual services – no matter how great your accountant is.
At CSI Accounting & Payroll, we’ve worked with small business accounting year-round for over 50 years. We’ve heard a lot about these common issues with accountants who only meet with their clients annually:
- Poor communication
- Lack of year-round tax strategy
- Limited service
Poor Communication
This is the only point that can vary by accountant, although you still get much less communication from an annual tax accountant than you would from a monthly accountant.
With an annual tax service, you only meet with your accountant each year. That means you don’t get business advice from them throughout the year, and they’ll be extremely busy with the rest of their clients during tax season.
Annual tax accountants also almost always come from small accounting firms. Often, they’re single-owners or have a very small staff. They can easily be overwhelmed with clients and slow to communicate.
Plus, a lot of annual tax accountants deal with a lot of non-business owners. When their focus is shifted toward personal tax clients, they may miss credits, deductions, and strategy that business-centered accountants would not.
Lack of Year-Round Tax Strategy
When you only meet with an accountant annually, there’s absolutely no chance of using a complete tax strategy that consists of tax planning, projections, preparation, and filing. They just record the data of your past year, and you’ll find out what you owe in taxes right before they’re due.
If you work with a monthly accountant instead, they guide your strategic business moves throughout the year to improve your tax season. You’ll have tax planning meetings with projections to help you know what you’ll owe in taxes several months ahead of time.
Limited Service
Most small business owners – even ones who do their own bookkeeping on the side – outsource their taxes. When you can face a large tax bill or criminal consequences for incorrectly prepared taxes, you want to trust a professional.
However, an annual tax service is limited to just that – a tax service. You don’t get much bang for your buck.
On the other hand, when you work with a monthly accounting service, your annual taxes are included – no need for an annual accountant!
There are other services included in monthly accounting as well, such as unlimited one-off questions and monthly financial statements and account reconciliations. It’s a bookkeeper, tax accountant, and consultant all under one roof. It can cost more, but it also offers more.
Avoid Tax Service Problems
Now that you know about the issues that can happen with annual services, such as poor communication, a lack of year-round tax strategy, and limited service, are you ready to check out monthly accounting services?
If so, please consider CSI Accounting & Payroll! To see if we can be a good fit for your business, click the button below for a free consultation:
Not ready to talk? That’s okay! First, learn more about what monthly accounting costs by clicking the image below:
