Small business owners in Montreal might think they can and must handle everything financially on their own, but the truth is that they are more likely to run into a costly mistake or take up so much of their free time that it ends up not being worth it in the long run.

Hiring an accountant or bookkeeper is about maximizing those gains and minimizing losses. Only an experienced professional can find you the savings and prevent any costly errors that can sink your business. Let’s take a closer look at some of those ways.

Always On-time and Budget

When you’re strapped for time, you begin to fight the clock to stay up-to-date on financial trends. You can’t afford to fall behind on bills and transactions. Only a trained accountant can properly keep things in order and give you current figures so that there are no guessing games being played when you reach a slow sales month or need to invest every penny into the growth of the business. Even just having someone come in and help you catch up on your paperwork every few months can make a big impact on how well you manage your money.

Timely Tax Deductions

Accountants are every business’ best friend when it comes time for tax season, but ideally you’ll want to start preparing for filing at about halfway into the year to get a good idea of how much you are on track to pay or save. A smart accountant can steer you into the direction of meeting certain requirements for write-offs that could save you thousands. Be sure to scout out an accounting service in Montreal that includes a wide range of qualified accountants, that way you can get sound business advice outside of just going by the book.

Handling Payroll

This will likely be a big part of your accounting duties if you are choosing to go at it alone. It is very easy to mess up payroll processing, which is why many businesses choose to outsource these duties to increase productivity as well as payroll security. By handing these duties off to a qualified accounting service, you are freeing up more time to invest back into the company, rather than relying on yourself or a dedicated payroll position in-house, which always poses issues.

Fraud Prevention

Sort of piggy-backing off that last point made, by hiring an accountant to oversee and process all your financial transactions, you are taking away the possibility of ever being hurt from within your company. It’s easy to say that you would never hire anyone who would fit the profile of a thief or defrauder, but fraud usually occurs in the most unlikely scenarios, even in a friendly part of Quebec where everyone knows your name. If your staff grows to a point where you no longer can keep up very personal relationships with all your employees, then you will definitely be best served to hand off important financial duties to a professional. Having a third party who can objectively look at any suspicious data and review cases of fraud is crucial in preventing heavy losses.