Your accountant is a critical part of your financial team. It is very important for you to have the right one on your team. So how do you know if it is time to get a new accountant? 

On Friday, May 1st we joined 350+ business owners at the Milestones in Leadership Summit in Huntington Beach. It was a day full of entrepreneurial energy and great insights from our speaker Cameron Herold.

Below are eight takeaways from Cameron’s presentation. If you didn’t make it this year, we hope you can join us next year. 

You most likely started your business because you are really good at something or knew how do something better. Maybe it was product design, marketing, manufacturing, etc. More often than not though, finance is not your strong suit. For many business owners, business finance is an area where they lack clarity and direction; it is even a source of stress and fear.

It Does Not Have to be That Way.

As a CPA I often have the opportunity to review the financial position of many new clients. One of the items that constantly gives me a lot of grief is finding annuities held by new clients in situations that are not appropriate.  I always think, had they just given me a call to discuss the pros and cons they would not have gotten themselves locked into the contract that does not fit their current goals or will not be flexible when their circumstances change.

Besides picking out the perfect addition or decoration for your rental property, you also need to think about whether the expense is considered a repair or maintenance type cost or capital improvement expenditure for tax purposes.  This is very important because it significantly impacts your tax deductions if you are not in the trade or business of renting properties.

In November, we held our last Financial Coaching to Survive and Thrive training session of the year. We had great sessions in Glendale and Irvine and thoroughly enjoyed the additional information from our guest business brokers. 

Session five of our Financial Coaching to Survive and Thrive series took place in Glendale and Irvine last week. In our group of business owners, we discussed Return on Investment (ROI) and the Altman Z Score 

For those of you who couldn’t make it to either session, here is a quick recap on ROI. 

At the 2014 Scaling New Heights conference in San Antonio, Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit, spoke at length about QuickBooks Online and the future of accounting data and processes. His vision, along with that of other industry leaders, is a future where the majority of businesses have cloud-based accounting technologies in place. With major accounting software systems such as QuickBooks, Xero and Freshbooks already marching to the cloud, business owners have a lot of considerations to make before moving their financial data to the cloud.

As I work on new client’s personal financial planning, I am always disappointed in how the rascals in the wealth management business take advantage of their clients. We are constantly working with clients to make sure they have a plan that fits and that such a plan is actually being followed.