For many businesses in Chattanooga, a CPA is someone they see once a year, if they’re lucky. But the real value of a CPA lies in staying in communication with you throughout the year and actually shaping how much your tax bill impacts your company and its future during March, June, and October, not just April.
Ultimately, CPAs involved with you year-round are able to help you make the best decisions.
What Shape Does Year-Round Advisory Take?
Here’s what year-round advisory actually looks like in practice.
Financial Forecasting
Year-round CPAs will assist you with financial forecasting by getting to know your numbers better and projecting your cash flow. They’ll also project how a new hire or location will impact you. They’ll check your margins compared to the industry average and tell you months in advance whether they think you’re going to have a cash flow issue.
JHM’s client accounting and advisory team does exactly this work. We monitor your accounts and finances, alerting you to issues that might come down the pike.
Tax Planning, Not Just Preparation
Many businesses confuse tax preparation with tax planning, but a tax accountant in Chattanooga will tell you they are not the same. Tax planning is a method to reduce your overall tax bill, whereas tax preparation is simply submitting the required forms at the right time. It allows you to prepare your budgets in advance to minimize your liabilities. You can significantly cut your costs down the road by structuring spending in a specific way or taking advantage of tax credits.
Retirement and Wealth Planning
You probably didn’t get into business to be in business forever. Instead, one of your objectives was likely to use your company to build wealth.
JHM offers wealth management options through its relationship with Mariner Wealth Advisors. We can assist with owners’ personal retirement contributions, succession planning, and personal investments. These can all be folded into the company’s existing tax structure to minimize liability if needed.
Business Advisory
Knowing how much your business is worth or whether it’s under threat from the competition is critical. Getting proper insights on when to bring in a new partner or sell enables you to extract as much value as possible from your enterprise.
JHM offers a business advisory and valuation service that looks to the future. It can tell you what’s coming, so you’re not always being reactive.
Bookkeeping
Lastly, a small business accountant in Chattanooga can provide you with basic bookkeeping. We can handle your accounting properly all year and make sure all of your returns and submissions are accurate.
Benefit Immediately
Year-round advisory is also something you can benefit from immediately. Most businesses only pay their accountants to do bookkeeping, so they make the proper submissions in April and at other times of the year. They don’t get advice on retirement planning or how to accelerate a purchase while reducing its tax liability.
With year-round advisory, that’s not the case. CPAs understand how to deliver knowledge in a way that will help the business and its owners most at any time during the year.
Get Year-Round Advisory Now
JHM Certified Public Accountants has been serving Chattanooga residents and companies since 1977. Contact the JHM team today and we can discuss with you what year-round planning could do for your firm and how it could improve your future.