The Advantages of Hiring a Technical Accountant for Your Small Business
If you’re running a small business, you are probably familiar with the many challenges that occur on a day-to-day basis and the immense amount of hard work required to sustain it. One way to reduce your workload, as well as the risks and liabilities you face, is by hiring a technical accountant to help out with your finances. A technical accountant can handle all the roles that a normal accountant can, but they also have specialized knowledge of the intricacies of financial reporting and how to maximize your income that others may not have.
Why You Need a Technical Accountant
Accountants are the unsung heroes of the business world. When business owners try and do their financial work without them, it almost always ends up going badly and increasing costs in the end. Hiring an accountant is one of the smartest and most important decisions that any business owner can make, especially when profits reach a certain level and the work begins piling up higher.
The proliferation of stricter financial controls and regulatory reporting requirements means that a technical accountant’s role gets even more important every year. Staying on top of all the requirements you need to fulfill while dealing professionally and legally with banks and the government should be one of your top priorities, as failing to do so can have devastating effects on your life and income.
Technical accountants can help with many of the complex financial procedures that business owners regularly face, such as:
Making sure that you meet GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) requirements. If you’re unfamiliar with these principles and rules, a technical accountant should be a top priority for you.
Acquisitions and business combination accounting.
Adopting the new ASC 842 leasing standard which became mandatory in 2022.
Handling share-based compensation for your employees.
Managing complex debt, funding, and investment strategies.
Understanding and streamlining your revenue through revenue recognition reviews.
If you own a small business, most likely you have an area of expertise that has allowed you to successfully achieve a dream many people share. Being self-reliant and self-employed, along with being able to employ others, is a major accomplishment and something to be proud of.
However, don’t make the common mistake of thinking that you can understand and fulfill all of these complex financial requirements along with running your business. You only have so much time, and being able to pass along some of this highly-technical financial work to a qualified professional who will be able to complete it properly and correctly is critical to ensuring success in the future.
What Does a Technical Accountant Do?
Along with handling the normal responsibilities of an accountant like financial reporting, planning, and analysis, record keeping, creating data sets, handling taxes, auditing finances, and ensuring payroll runs smoothly, technical accountants can help with much more. Some of the specialized tasks they will help your business with are:
Acting as a contact point for auditors or financial regulators.
Making sure that all reporting requirements and compliance standards are met.
Helping to establish and track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Providing forecasts, plans, and analyses for future financial goals and budgets.
Supporting and training new accounting employees.
Implementing new accounting or reporting standards.
Preparing financial reports and new business accounts.
Making sure that accounting processes are streamlined across all departments.
The reason technical accountants are so valuable is their high level of expertise and education. Typically, an accountant will have at least a Bachelor’s degree in accounting, while a technical accountant will have gone further, such as obtaining a Master’s degree in Business Administration or some other relevant field.
This qualifies them to act as managers to other accountants on their team and to work on and understand the most complex financial tasks and jobs. Often, a technical accountant will have a team of accountants underneath them performing administrative tasks like obtaining data and preparing reports, while they will handle managerial-level roles like interacting with regulators and interpreting or forecasting based on the available data.
Business owners have a lot to gain from the services of a technical accountant, and small businesses are no exception. Don’t leave your financial future at risk and open yourself up to liabilities by trying to save money and doing it yourself. This will lead to problems down the road, as there will invariably be small details that only a trained and qualified professional like a technical accountant can catch.
For example, US GAAP reporting requirements grow stricter every year, and there will only be more and more regulation of the financial sector as time goes on. As companies and governments look to the future of digital currencies, CBDCs, and other new financial tools, they will continue implementing new ways to combat fraud and maintain control of the financial sector. Be sure to keep your business on top of the competition by using the services of a technical accountant.
