If you make a mistake when doing your taxes, you might end up facing a large fine. But as a dentist, you might not know how to do the taxes for your dental practice.
With that said, a good accountant can help you overcome this problem.
Keep reading and you’ll learn how to find the best tax accountant for your needs. By the time you’re finished, you’ll feel a lot better about your ability to avoid fines due to bad tax returns.
Let’s begin!
Can You Ask Anyone for Help?
As a dentist, you likely know other people who are also dentists.
These people probably need also need to use the services of an accountant. You can ask them if they know of any good accountants you can reach out to.
These recommendations are valuable, as the accountants in question have gone through a vetting process. You’ll thus have a higher confidence level in the accountant if you eventually decide to hire them.
If you don’t know of any dentists, you could always ask other business owners. But when you do this you need to be cautious. Not all accountants are the same and just because an accountant is good for one business, doesn’t mean they’ll be good for your business.
Speak to as Many Accountants as Possible
By speaking to a wide range of accountants, you’ll improve your odds of finding someone that’s going to be a good fit for your business. Try to speak to at least three different accountants.
If you’re unable to find three accountants by asking for recommendations, think about searching online. When you perform an online search, you’ll find there are two distinct groups of accountants.
There will be local accountants and there will be large accounting firms.
More often than not, small accounting firms can provide you with a better level of service.
They will have offices that you can visit and when you visit these offices you can ask the accountants some questions. The larger accounting firms might be a lot more formal. You may not have the luxury of arranging an appointment this way.
Smaller firms may provide recommendations on how you can improve your accounting practices. A large accounting firm will likely have a streamlined process that’s designed to complete the task of doing your books as quickly as possible.
It’s worth mentioning that you should remain informed. Don’t wait for an accountant to tell you everything.
You can do this by reading up on small business taxes and how they work. If you’d like to see an example blog post surrounding this topic, you can read more here.
If you’re thinking about working with a small local accountant, spend some time reading their reviews. You’ll often see your local accountants within the Google maps section.
You should see some data next to their name that highlight the experiences of past customers. You can use these ratings to better decide which accountant is worth working with.
What Is Their Process Like?
Each accountant generally has their own process that they use to work with their clients.
Ideally, you want to work with someone that’s using some kind of electronic filing system. This makes it easier to keep track of records. Some government agencies are also demanding that firms use some kind of electronic installation now too.
Keep in mind that if your chosen accountant does use an electronic filing system, you’ll probably have to learn how it works. You should also work out if you’ll need to spend money on the electronic software. Some accountants will offer it to you for free but some will ask you pay full price.
Understand All the Fees
Before you start working with an accountant spend some time understanding all the fees you’re going to face. This is essential if you want to avoid unexpected expenses.
Most accountants are going to charge you on a monthly basis. But some will also charge an extra fee on top of this, to prepare certain tax returns. Make sure you ask them what it’ll cost to prepare the yearly accounts for your business.
How Do They Treat You?
Put some thought into how an accountant is treating you, at the start of the process.
If you send an accountant an email, how long do they take to respond? If they take a while, do they have a legitimate reason for doing so? If you find the accountant is slow to respond to emails, don’t expect things to change once you start working with them.
The same goes for any kind of phone communication.
An accountant should leave you a voice message if they’re unable to reach you. This’ll give you the chance to quickly learn what the content of the call is about. But if they don’t do this, then you need to keep in mind that all future communication will likely follow this pattern.
You should also consider if they’re dismissive of your questions. If they make you feel stupid for asking simple questions that aren’t obvious to you, consider working with someone else.
Remember, you’ll need to work with this individual during some potentially stressful times. You want to be sure you can get along with them. If you can’t it’s going to make thing very tough on you whenever tax time does roll around.
Ready to Hire a Tax Accountant?
Hiring a tax accountant is something that nearly every dentist will need to think about at some point or another. But finding a good accountant is not easy.
In this post, we’ve reviewed some of the things a dentist can do to find their ideal tax accountant. You should ask people for recommendations. You should also consider whether you want to work with a local accountant or a big accounting firm.
It’s also important that you feel comfortable with the accountant in question. If you think that you’re not going to get along with them, then you should definitely consider working with someone else. Not making a change will just make things harder for you later on down the line.
Need some marketing strategies for your dental practice? Check out this post for some tips!