Accountancy: How CPAs Can Help You

A Certified Public Accountant, or CPA, can help you make sure that your small business accounting or individual taxes are accurate and complete. Some businesses are small enough, such as home based businesses, that a Certified Public Accountant is not needed for most accounting tasks. However, there are times when a business or individual should use a Certified Public Accountant.

Looking through your local yellow pages for Certified Public Accountants will give you hundreds of firms and individuals that are Certified Public Accountants in your area to choose from. How do you choose one of the Certified Public Accountants with no information other than the address and phone number?

Doing an internet search for Certified Public Accountants will give you thousands of results, many of which will not be local to your area, and many of which will be information about Certified Public Accountants rather than listings for the Certified Public Accountants themselves.

You can use a localized search engine such as Yahoo Local or Google Local to find Certified Public Accountants in your area. However, this too has its drawbacks. If you use Yahoo Local, you will only receive results that are like yellow page results: an address and phone number. There may or may not be reviews by consumers of the Certified Public Accountants as well, however, which could also help you to make a decision. Google Local, however, also provides you with website links for the Certified Public Accountants when they are available. This allows you to go to the websites of the Certified Public Accountants and gather information about the firm or individual to help you make a decision.

In the case that you are chosen for audit by the IRS, your best bet to come through the audit cleanly is to have a CPA by your side. A CPA is as familiar with tax law as the IRS representative performing the audit. Because of this, the CPA can negotiate a lower penalty, help you avoid penalties, and help you claim the deductions you deserve. You should contact a CPA as soon as you have received an audit notice from the IRS, because the CPA can help you prepare for your audit and gather the necessary information. Then, the CPA can walk into the audit interview by your side, completely in charge and confident of the outcome of your audit.

If you own a small business, a CPA can also help you determine what business taxes are required by your local, state, and federal government. In addition, the CPA can help you set up a double entry accounting system that includes a journal and ledger. The CPA can also help you to set up a standard chart of accounts for use with your ledger. All of these tools will help you stay organized and ready for tax time and any possible audits.

The CPA can also use the information from these tools to create financial statements for your business, which will then help you to make business decisions, make comparisons with competitors, discover industry and company financial trends, and prepare financial reports and business plans for purposes of investors and bank loans.

Additionally, if you make a mistake and do not claim a deduction that you could legally claim, the IRS will not attempt to correct the mistake, causing you to receive a smaller refund. Either way, you lose money. The best way to avoid these and other errors is to have a Certified Public Accountant prepare your income tax return.

Article Source: http://publisherscloninghouse.com

Information supplied and written by Daniel J Austin is the owner of the web site about Accountancy and how you can find Certified Public Accountants
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