Quickbooks or Accountants

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

First, I hate accountants they are as unnecessary to me as half the shows on Bravo. But, when you start a business it’s best if you get a recommendation from someone else who runs a small business. Taxes are a MOFO in this game and you need someone to present them properly so you don’t end up getting audited. So what does Quickbooks have to do with all of this you ask? Quickbooks is by far the easiest software to use for your day to day running of your business. It provides way more than most people use it for and for that reason I give it the stamp of approval for anyone starting their own business. Now it’s not like I used 20 different kinds this was the one recommended by my friend who is an accountant so I learned how to use it.

Now, Quickbooks provides you with a lot of great documents like purchase orders (that you need to give to your vendors), invoices (what you need to give to your customer), reports (that you need to organize your money) and of course it does everything else like gives you a very accurate accounting of what you actually have. The great thing about Quickbooks even a dummy like me figured it out. My friend told me not to throw away any receipts and just keep them in a box labeled by months so that’s what I did. When he had time he helped me to put them all in Quickbooks and I have been running the company with Quickbooks ever since. Plus Quickbooks only cost like 39 bucks so I just said why not. Quickbooks can also do your payroll taxes if you let them but it’s a extra service that I can take care of myself but it’s still a good option besides paying ADP!

ADP is a company that usually does a lot of companies payroll for a dollar amount. I used them when I hired my employees but once you realize what they are doing you’ll get rid of them like I did.

Picking a CPA or a accountant is kind of tough to do because who in the hell knows where to start. So I ended up using some referrals from friends and other people in business. I ended up using them all once and then got rid of them all until my friend said he could do it for a lot less and I trust him more. Now the reason why I got rid of them all is because they started telling me how to run my business. I personally hate when people give me advice because I am young like I don’t know how to make money. Obviously I am here making money so I must know how to make money but these dummies thought they should school me. One guy told me I am not working as hard as I should. So I told him how in the hell would he know because looking at numbers doesn’t mean a damn thing! He apologized and I told him I didn’t want him doing my taxes and got up out of there. Did I overreact? NOPE because they are my vendors not my friends so I expect them to do their job. So here’s what to expect from picking a CPA/Accountant…

1. The price to do your taxes should be FLAT they should NOT get a percentage off of what you might get back.
2. The price ranges from 500 to 1000 depending on what taxes you are asking them to do (ie..State & Fed)
3. They should provide at least 3 copies of every tax form provided in a folder. One for your records, one for you to turn into the IRS and State and another as a backup copy.
4. They should provide you with all the envelopes and addresses you need to mail out the forms yourself. DO NOT take their word for your taxes going out. You need to make sure so tell them you’ll mail them out.
5. If you use Quickbooks you should be able to send them a Accounting backup that they can do all of your taxes. You do not need to bring in any other documents.
6. They should take about 2 weeks to finish depending on how many people’s taxes they are doing. The earlier you get them in to them the faster they should come back.

You can trust them if you like but to me it’s like trusting the dude who flips my burger. We have a deal and that’s it. The deal is I pay and he doesn’t spit into my food. I know you’ll hear people say you need to build a team of people but you have to remember you aren’t running a team you are running a business and all these people are, are vendors. Don’t mix the two or you’ll be like the guys on TV, who accountant didn’t turn in their taxes and now they owe the IRS.

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