Offshore accounts. /s

Bookkeeper sometimes missed one or two invoices per month, resulting in suppliers who get grumpy. Trying to iron this out to keep suppliers happy. New accountant is very thorough and professional, but isn’t as creative as the last one… Wish the accountant would offer more advice to say “hey, the accounts are X, heading into tax due in 1-2 months, if you spend Y we can lower your liabilities this period.” Instead he just sets up an expensive meeting to say “congratulations, you owe Z!”

My accountant. Can’t ever get hold of the prick. And when I can, he knows less than I do and just submits my figures to the tax man.

Utterly pointless waste of space.

A lower bill lol

Not missing but getting. Accessibility and able to bounce ideas off him or his team from time to time. All the other basic services are covered. It’s the above and beyond I appreciate. They tend to be conservative- and rightly so - I tend to push the envelope.

I spend $15k+ a year on my CPA and sure don’t feel like they save me $15k.

My accountant is just focused on meeting government deadlines. I wish I got data on growth, why customers haven’t bought for 3 months, etc.

He said pay me 2x to do this MIS

The part where he works in his living room and doesn’t have that “rich people” mindset.

He’s lower-low middle class (at best) and works within that mindset & that’s exactly how my taxes are setup & done.

This is a great question! As a bookkeeper… Following

Are you using this sub to test what accounting services you want to expand into?

This is an interesting topic of what the expectation is from each party. My wife and I run an accounting shop (mostly bookkeeping) and then I do contract controller work. I’m a CPA, but have never done taxes. The gap in what clients expect knowledge wise is hard to balance. And I don’t mean from bookkeeper to CPA. Even within basic acct work that is prevalent.

I go with the below parameters:

Bookkeeper - I call them process accountants. Usually don’t know the debit/credit logic, but understand the system and this is a deposit, check, etc. Books should be at least 60-70% accurate with some accruals, prepaid type stuff likely being cash basis. Likely don’t understand the ins and out of payroll but can process it. Don’t know much about taxes.

Accountant - Books should be 90%+ correct. Could answer most questions from an average small business. Provide increased clarity into the financials vs printing out a P&L and sending via email. Can handle payroll ins and outs and can talk to a CPA about taxes intelligently.

CPA - in theory all the above. I’ve found they’re a little lazy when it comes to the pure accounting work, but they should be able to handle tax stuff and the above.

Tax advise. It seems that accountants only plug the numbers in at the tax filing deadline.

They think that is a good time to say " You could have saved on your taxes if…"