Guide to What You Need to Know About Hiring an Accountant
1. Ask about how often their clients get audited. This is important since it is a reflection of the CPA firm. If a CPA firm always has to deal with getting audited then it implies that they aren’t doing their job properly. Accountants know what the IRS looks for and what the IRS doesn’t look for.
2. Ask about if they outsource work to other companies. Be careful about this. Some accounting firms outsource their work to people that don’t even have an accounting degree. Of course, most of the time the accountants will look at the work to see if everything is correct.
3. Ask about the education that the people in the office have. There is difference between someone who has just an accounting degree compared to CPA. A professional that is a CPA can charge a lot more per hour than someone else due to having more training and go to tax school each year. In order to become a CPA then a person has to pass a very difficult test. Most CPA firms let the other staff do work for clients even though some of the staff don’t have enough training.
4. Always get recommendations from other clients regarding the firm. You only want to do business with a firm that has happy clients. Make sure to ask a few people what they think about the firm and if they are happy with the services, prices, and results.
5. Do they have big clients? If the CPA firm has some of the big businesses in the city as their clients then they are probably a good CPA firm. When they are able to make big companies happy and not get audited then they are doing pretty good. They can’t tell you who their clients are unless they get permission from the client .
The most important thing to make sure that they give you good advice. You want to select a firm that are open regular hours during business days. You want a CPA firm that is friendly and helpful. You want a CPA firm that answers your phone calls and doesn’t make excuses as to why your tax return isn’t done.
Your social security number and other information is suppose to be confidential since a CPA firm is held to strict regulations regarding that information. Keep in mind though that information is only as confidential as people choose to keep it. Ask about if other staff members aren’t allowed to see you social security number and other information. Some programs that CPA firms have do make the clients SSN show up as just X’s to the other staff in the office except for the CPA’s.
