Do You Need an Accountant if You Are Self-Employed?

There is an increasing number of people choosing to become self-employed. If you have spent your life, or at least some portion, working for others you understand the appeal. It does mean that every aspect of running the business is your responsibility, so this means that it will be a lot harder work than if you were working for someone else’s business. You may be wondering whether you need an accountant if you are self-employed. Considering that there will be a lot of finances to keep a record of, and taxes to pay, it can be easy to see how having an accountant could be useful. If you decide that you need a bookkeeper and are looking for Accountants Swindon, I highly recommend Chippendale and Clark accountants Swindon. Read on to find out some reasons why someone self-employed may want to hire an accountant:

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1. The first reason is to make sure your transactional records are kept up-to-date, payments are made on time, and nothing is missed or forgotten. There is an increasing amount of tax investigations taking place currently in the UK, so to protect yourself from any possible fines or accusations, you could benefit from hiring an accountant who has knowledge about the current tax laws.
2. The next reason why hiring an accountant can be helpful is because they can save you time. Being self-employed means that you have to focus on many things at once, making your time extra precious. If you want to give your attention to other aspects of the businesses such as its growth, or its brand, it can be a good idea to hire an accountant, so you don’t have to have the finances weighing on your shoulders as well.

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It is possible to be your own accountant, and be responsible for the invoices, payments and annual tax returns yourself, but it would be helpful to have at least some experience or knowledge about the basics of bookkeeping and accounting first. You do not want to risk making any costly mistakes causing your business to face fines from the government.

There is no rule saying just because you are self-employed  you have to hire an accountant but for the reasons I stated above, you hopefully now have more of an idea of why hiring an accountant would be beneficial. If you are looking only to fulfil your dream of a business but want to avoid doing the daily chores involved to make this a reality, an accountant can help at least with the financial recording aspect of the business. If you start expanding your business and start hiring employees, you will find having an accountant increasingly useful in order to manage the salaries of each employee and the costs of running an office.

If you wish to apply for funding, or get a business loan, an accountant can also help you with this increasingly tricky task. Just make sure that the accountant you hire has experience and good time management skills.