You wouldn’t hire an orthopedic to insert a heart stent nor would you hire a heart surgeon to fix your torn meniscus. In an emergency, sure, an orthopedic could try to work on your heart but your life expectancy would not be as long and sure, the heart surgeon could try to fix your knee, but it might leave you with chronic pain. That is why you go to a specialist. That’s why specialists exist. They spend every day getting better and better at one thing.
So why would you have your bookkeeper give tax strategy or your CPA give HR advise?
As a bookkeeper, show me your books and I can spot errors, duplicate entries, or if it would pass an audit. But I have clients asking me about tax strategy a lot. Do I know a bit about taxes? Yes. Am I the specialist? No. I get asked about hiring. Do I know a little about it, Yes. Am I the specialist? No. I have a new client that when entering the first two payrolls into the books, I found errors in the employer taxes being paid to the IRS. After the second time, my client went back and said all the payrolls had that same error. I spotted it but I don’t do payroll. Get an expert. I like Gusto or ADP for payroll. They are the expert.
You are not going to want to hear this but there is no one person that can do it all.
I know when you are starting out, cash is tight. But your business will become stagnant if you don’t have specialists to help you. Get a bookkeeper. Get a CPA that knows business, not personal, tax strategies. Get a business coach. Contract out your HR. And if you sell anything, get a sales trainer.
So start with a bookkeeper. As a bookkeeper, I know which of my client’s CPAs, business coaches, sales trainers and HR experts are good ones. Your bookkeeper will be your business’s best friend.