What factors should you consider when choosing an online accountant?

Online accountants will simplify accounts and bookkeeping for business owners who prefer to focus on other things than getting their taxes in order.

There's no doubt that finding the right online or cloud-based accountant is vital for any business, whether it's a small firm, a medium-sized firm or a charity.

As online accounting has grown, many accounting firms have adopted a one-size-fits-all approach. Despite being advertised as a cheap, streamlined service, this is little more than a subscription to cloud accounting software.

An accountant who delivers a new level of service should combine the knowledge, compliance, and advisory elements of traditional accounting with cloud accounting software.

An accountant is someone who goes beyond balance sheets and tax returns. It is crucial that you hire an expert who can analyze the data collected by your new software package in order to identify potential growth areas, new revenue streams, and new sources of profit.

You don't just get access to software such as Xero at Zyla Accountants that streamlines all your accounting, receipts, and invoicing processes. Our experienced team of accountants and support staff will be able to advise and guide you on how to use this technology to gain deeper insights into your business. We will also provide a whole range of additional services to support your growth.

Benefits of online accounting

Once upon a time, having an accountant was a badge of success. Large companies needed an accountant because one person would have too much work.

But, for small or owner-managed businesses, the traditional approach was to take care of accounts yourself. To owners, it made financial sense despite the fact it took up a great deal of their time.

This is where online accountants have changed the perception of hiring an accountant, regardless of your business’ size.

The power of online accounting has shifted the decision of working with an accountant from a lifestyle one to a performance one.

Investing in a professional accountant doesn’t just mean regaining all the personal time you’ve spent on your books, it also means cleaning up your accounts, identifying tax breaks to boost profitability, improving your cash flow, and ultimately making your business more successful.

Accounting in the cloud versus traditional accounting

Even though cloud accounting and traditional accounting are intended to serve the same purpose, they differ in a few essential ways, such as what security precautions they possess in changing the role accounting, what costs they incur, and how much collaboration they provide between coworkers and stakeholders. Traditional accounting and cloud accounting differ in the following ways:

The power of an online accountant

When you’re looking after your own books, it can be easy to overlook little things a qualified accountant wouldn’t, regardless of how long you’ve been taking care of your business’ accounts for.

There is a lot of complexity involved with taxes, especially. In addition to running a company, you may not be aware of all the rules that HMRC has in place.

In actual fact, having an accountant can make you money in the long run.

When working on accounts yourself you may miss valid expenses, underestimate your tax bill and face penalties, fall behind on invoicing, file compliance paperwork after their deadline and take a fine, spend hours trying to fix old mistakes, and most detrimental of all - not having the information or advice generated by an online accountant to help your business grow.

Contact our team at Zyla Accountants and we would be happy to discuss how we can work together.