How to put together a small business accounting team

Unless you are a complete whiz with numbers, you will need to put together a small business accounting team to help manage your business finances.

Numbers are an important part of business. To be able to manage your small business accounting and financials, you will need to hire a bookkeeper, an accountant, a controller, or a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at some point.Each professional may be used at some stage of your business lifecycle. The world of business finance can be complex and daunting. This leaves many small business owners simply ignoring their business finances. However, by establishing the right financial structure, at the right time in your business' lifecycle, you can help shore up your business against failure. While there aren't any clear-cut rules on when to hire or expand your small business accounting team, you may want consider the following guidelines:

• When to Hire a Bookkeeper: This is often the first step for a start up business. A bookkeeper can help you start off with a good record keeping system, handle financial transactions, and produce financial statements. This is a good move is balance sheets and cash flow planning seem too much to handle. Simply by hiring the services of a bookkeeper can help you gain a basic understanding of the financial aspects, of running a business. This is also a good choice for a home-based business that is trying to keep costs low. You may still need an accountant for year-end tax planning, but a bookkeeper can help you handle all the months until then.


• When to Hire an Accountant: This may be the right move when you are adding employees to your payroll. Hiring an accountant for your small business accounting team will help with all financial matters including but not limited to: advice on payroll, staffing costs, and ideas to improve your profits. This can also be helpful when making the decision to change your company ownership structure. An accountant can help guide you through the financial and tax implications of changing from a sole-proprietor or partnership, to a corporation or a limited liability corporation. When you are looking for outside financing you may need to use an auditor. Having your financial statements that were put in order by an accountant can aid in the loan approval process. It is important to keep in mind that any business with a complex billing cycle, and account management, will often require the experience of an accountant over a bookkeeper or the owner.


• When to Hire a Controller: This may be the right move for an established business with a solid management team that wants to focus more on the bigger strategic issues. At this point you should hire a controller to manage the day-to-day budget and financial operations.This can also be the right move when your company needs to move onto to more sophisticated financial accounting software. Your controller can not only manage your financials, but can help select an appropriate financial software system.


• When to Hire a CFO: This may be the right move if your business is experiencing rapid growth or planning a major expansion. This is often the time when it can benefit from adding a CFO to the small business accounting team. A CFO can provide strategic advice to companies that are adding multiple product lines, and requiring financial management of complex issues. If you are attempting something simple such as applying for a new business credit line at the bank it will not require the expertise of a CFO, however, if you are planning an Initial Public Offering (IPO), or more complex money raising tactics, then a CFO can add value to your small business accounting team.