The other day, a business owner confessed to a major hang-up. They knew they couldn’t handle their finances alone; they needed help. But they were terrified that hiring an accountant meant giving up control of their money.
We all fear the unknown. It’s why kids are afraid of the dark. You might worry that a stranger will get all up in your personal business, judge your messy bookkeeping, screw up your system, or just walk away with your hard-earned cash.
A lot of people online will tell you that a bookkeeper can just empty your bank account if they have access to your systems. They cannot. The truth is that you can authorize viewer-only access for your accountant without giving them a single ounce of transaction authority. Your accountant does not get access to move your money around unless you explicitly choose a specialized model like Profit First. You decide exactly how much to delegate.
Delegation vs Abdication
The internet tells you that handing over your financial records means abdicating your authority. That is a flat lie.
Hiring a professional is a form of delegation, which means giving a specific duty to someone else. It is not abdication, which means abandoning control over something you are responsible for.
Here’s a very specific example for you. Just go with it; it’ll make sense. In a CrossFit Open weightlifting workout, the weights increase with every single round. So the athletes competing have a loader standing there to add the heavy plates for them each time. The athlete is still the one responsible for lifting the bar. It’s highly efficient to have a professional handle the plates so the athlete can focus all of their energy on the competition.
Think of your accountant or bookkeeper as the professional putting the plates on for you. You still lift the bar. You’re still completely responsible for the financial situation of your business.
You can’t just hand over your books, tell the accountant to take care of it, and never look at a statement again. That is abdication. You still need to spend an hour once or twice a month going over your numbers.
Do What You Do Best
You are a business owner, not an accountant. You started your venture because it was something you loved, something you had immense school training for, or an area where you possessed deep experience.
Let’s say you want to celebrate your employees and have a little party with some cake. But you know you’re a terrible baker. You don’t have the experience or knowledge base to do it well. But since it’s your business and you don’t want to give up control, you think you have to bake the cake yourself. That’s totally ridiculous. No one would actually do that. You’d go buy a cake, effectively hiring a baker to bake the cake for you.
Hiring an expert to help with those specific things that you can’t do allows you more time to concentrate on running your business and doing the parts that you like to handle.
How to Take Back Control
What you should actually be afraid of is what happens if you refuse to hire an accountant. It can lead to missed deductions, critical mistakes on a tax return that trigger an audit with the IRS, and bad business decisions if any of the financial data is wrong.
According to the Small Business Association, about 20% of new businesses fail in their very first year. Half collapse within the first five years. A separate Small Business Report revealed that only 30% of small business owners actually work with an outside accountant. There is a very real, very dangerous correlation there. You are far more likely to fail without an expert in your corner.
Overcome your fear and take back control with these steps.
- Do your research and go through the steps to hire a good accountant. One you trust.
- Look at your reports regularly. Use that information to make good decisions for your business.
- Simply don’t give up control. You don’t have to, and your accountant especially doesn’t want you to.
The relationship works best when you maintain responsibility over your finances.
Stop setting your time on fire trying to manage a bureaucratic tax code alone. Schedule a call to map out your needs, and we’ll figure out together if we’re the right team to power your financial future.