No matter which accounting firm a business owner picks, he or she needs to make sure that more than one person is familiar with the operation.
“We try to have a small team of people assigned to every account,” says Mark Sipos, a partner with Midcap & Co., a CPA and business advisory firm. “Any one person is hard because you don’t want to have one person on that client. Fresh eyes always bring something new to the table. It’s always good. A lot of our clients we’ve had for 15 or 20 years.”
That experience has taught Sipos that business owners can get tunnel vision. Sometimes they think it’s all about how much money is coming in.
Believe it or not, that may not always be the most important thing.
“We try to educate them why the balance sheet is important and also why cash flow is the main driving force behind (for example) getting a loan,” Sipos says. “We go through the cash flow statement and explain that to them. Also, we go through the different ratios of what makes them have a better credit rating or not.
“We try to educate them as they’re going through the monthly and daily business. They can have that in the back of their mind as they’re making financial decisions. How is that going to impact what bank wants to see, what the tax man wants to see.”
