Accounting = Hell, Does It Have To Be So?

MOTB

Your accounting bills should mostly be for tax reporting, and possibly some local taxing issues. I have run a few businesses over the years that were a few million dollars in revenues and have always had my accounting fees be a few thousand dollars. I am rather organized when it comes to controlling all invoices, receipts and payments. Many accountants (rightfully so) charge to simply organize a company to then do their work. I have seen many companies accumulate paperwork all over the place to then organize them at a later time. This always creates holes for the accountant to then study and he has to charge for his time, and usually this can take more than it would to just do the work. So it summary, you will pay a lot of money if you are unorganized with your business; or you will pay a lot less if you are organized.

Bluepenguin

Thanks everyone for your replies. (I have no idea why there's a thumbs down on the top of my post or how to rid of it)

Quick update - we fired the accountant. I completely agree with MOTB - keeping organized is key. I can't believe the difference in our efficiency after I took over the paperwork and bookeeping. We always know where we stand.

However, I am not letting the accountant off the hook. We had numerous problems surface after my original post, and it had nothing to do with messy paperwork on our end. It was a good, long-running excuse on his end. He received everything he needed and we still had to revise our T4 Summary 3 times (3 times). At some point I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, he couldn't add 5 numbers correctly. He didn't even remember our year-end after 2 years of working with us. He wouldn't answer emails, or would make idiotic mistakes like get our postal code wrong, and spell our company name incorrectly. He would say he'd do one thing, and I'd never hear back. Then I'd have to courier documents to Revenue Canada at the 11th hour.

When pressed to correct the mistakes, he'd cross out errors in one instance (15+ numbers) and hand-wrote the changes instead of printing a new summary. He padded his invoices as to "not charge us" for this and many other mistakes. If I ever questioned any of his practices he'd drown me in "General Accounting Principles" talk as though that is the defense for all errors.

My pressure is rising after typing this... Bottom line is, he's gone and we learned not to trust a "professional" implicitly. Always do your due dilligence. Like add annual earnings for 5 employees and find your $150/hr accountant isn't capable of such a difficult task!