Questions to ask when hiring an accountant

When it comes to hiring people for your company you are going to want to hire the very best people for the job. Basically what this means is that you are not going to want to hire just anybody you are actually going to want to hire top notch people, and this includes your accountant. Whether you are going to be hiring a full time accountant or you are going to be outsourcing your accounting you are still going to want to take the proper things into consideration so that you can hire the best person for that job.

Most of you who have ever had to hire somebody for any type of position already know how hard it can be to find the right person for the job. Many people seem to look like the perfect candidate on paper, but when you get them in for the interview everything seems to fall apart. The good news is that there are some tips and tricks that you can use to make sure that you are hiring the perfect person for a senior accountant or any other position that you need to have filled.

One of the best tips that you can be given when it comes to hiring an accountant is what questions you should ask the person you are going to be hiring or the company that you are going to be hiring. The reason that you want to know what questions to ask is pretty self explanatory, if you don't ask the right questions you can end up hiring the wrong person or even the wrong firm. And since your accounting practices are important part of your company, finances and taxes, it is vital that you hire the best accountant, whether they are being hired directly by the company or you are hiring a CPA firm to do the work for you.

The questions that you are going to need to ask your accountant are going to vary depending on whether or not you are looking to hire somebody to work directly inside your company or if you are going to hire a firm to do your accounting work. But one thing that you need to know is that many of the questions that you should ask can be modified to fit your individual situation. But something else that you need to keep in mind is that there are going to be some questions that you are going to want to when hiring an actual person and there are going to be some questions that you are only going to want to ask of an actual firm.

Here are some questions you should ask when hiring an accountant.

1. How many years has the accountant been in business? How long have they worked for that particular CPA firm?

2. How many years experience does the accountant have in your particular industry?

3. What is the company's average response time?

4. What is the firm size?

5. Is the accountant familiar with your computerized accounting system? If not what computerized accounting systems are they familiar with?

6. How often do their clients get audited?

7. Do they outsource work to other companies?

8. What type of education do the people in the office have?

9. Can they provide you with recommendations from other clients?

10. Do they currently represent any well known businesses?

11. Can they provide you with references from past employers?

12. How long has the CPA firm been in business?

13. Is the accountant familiar with the current tax laws and accounting practices?

14. Is the accountant participating in continuing education classes?