Blog

When you look for an accountant, you don’t just want someone who can help you reduce your tax liability and prevent trouble with the IRS. You also want someone who can help make your business better. A good business accountant doesn’t just crunch numbers, he or she offers financial advice that improves your overall position. If you’re trying to decide whether to outsource your accounting needs or continue doing it in-house, you might be wondering what value you’ll receive in exchange for what you’ll pay.

Here are ten questions you might have when you consider outsourcing:

1. What Are the Potential Risks of In-House Bookkeeping?

If you do your accounting in-house, hiring requires finding someone with the right experience and a proven track record. If you’ve been using employees who are self-taught, you might end up with processing that is sub-par. In-house bookkeeping requires internal controls to provide checks and balances and protect your business from fraud risk.

2. Why Would an Organization Outsource?

Outsourcing improves the quality of the accounting department. Outsourced accounting firms give you access to a team of professionals committed to the financial operations of your company.

Sometimes businesses decide to outsource because they experience rapid growth and their old bookkeeping practices no longer keep pace. Others make the change because they recognize outsourcing can improve results.

3. What Are the Benefits of Outsourcing?

CPA firms provide high-quality work and extensive expertise. All certified public accountants are required to attend continual professional development to stay up to date. They base that development on topics most relevant to your business.

4. How Does Growth or Expansion Affect Accounting?

Sudden, rapid growth often creates demands existing staff can’t meet. Expansion exposes businesses to new situations, challenges, and regulations.

5. What’s the Cost Difference?

When calculating the cost difference between in-house and outsourced accounting, start with itemizing all the expenses involved with in-house solutions. There isn’t just the bookkeeper or full-time accountant’s salary, there is also additional employee overhead including payroll taxes, benefits, and retirement plans.

CPA firms save money by conducting a thorough financial analysis to help your business operate efficiently. They work regularly with the IRS on behalf of clients, and offer audit support if ever needed.

6. What about Confidential Data?

In today’s digital age, information security is a valid concern. Work with a firm that conducts background checks, ensures confidentiality, and has security measures in place for electronic data.

7. How Long Does Outsourcing Take to Implement?

Your chosen CPA firm should take a few weeks to assess your company and create a proposal. After you accept their proposal, they’ll configure any equipment and start the conversion process. In most situations, secure documents can be transported by courier. Digital data can be transferred via internet, fax or email.

8. What if an Organization Is Too Small?

Outsourcing can always be conducted to scale. If you need less, outsourcing can still help you save money and protect your business from financial mistakes.

9. Will Business Owners Lose Control Through Outsourcing?

CPA firms often give owners more control, because they have up-to-date, accurate information to make decisions. Owners have the opportunity to review and must authorize all disbursements.

10. How Should Businesses Choose a CPA Firm?

Owners should interview firms they’re considering, comparing their fees, specialties, certifications, and availability. Choose a firm that has worked with businesses like yours and offers a high level of service.

Gilmore Jasion Mahler Audit Partner Bob Bobek contributed this article. Did you find this blog helpful?  You can receive more informational articles and tax strategy ideas direct to your inbox. Be sure to sign up for our free GJM tax newsletter Focus. You may also want to consider signing up for some of our free quarterly industry newsletters, including The Manufacturer (for those in manufacturing & distribution), On-Site (construction & real estate), Practice Management Advisor (physician practices and other healthcare entities) and The Expert (with a focus on business valuation and litigation support). Sign up here for any of GJM's free newsletters.

Established in 1996, Gilmore Jasion Mahler, LTD (GJM) is the largest public accounting firm in Northwest Ohio, with offices in Maumee and Findlay. Locally owned, GJM offers cloud-based accounting services and provides comprehensive services including assurance, business advisory, tax, risk advisory and healthcare management. The Firm’s professionals specialize in industries including construction & real estate, healthcare, manufacturing & distribution and utilities. 

Gilmore Jasion Mahler Audit Partner Greg Taylor joined the firm in the fall of 2017. Greg came to GJM with over 25 years in public accounting, as well as CFO and private equity experience. He says he started talking with GJM about possibly coming on board, and it made him realize that he missed the client service role in public accounting.

If you're interested in receiving informational articles and tax strategy ideas direct to your inbox, be sure to sign up for our free GJM tax newsletter Focus. You may also want to consider signing up for some of our free quarterly industry newsletters, including The Manufacturer (for those in manufacturing & distribution), On-Site (construction & real estate industries), Practice Management Advisor (physician practices and other healthcare practices) and The Expert (with a focus on business valuation and litigation support). Sign up here for any of GJM's free newsletters.

Established in 1996, Gilmore Jasion Mahler, LTD (GJM) is the largest public accounting firm in Northwest Ohio, with offices in Maumee and Findlay. Locally owned, GJM offers cloud-based accounting services and provides comprehensive services including assurance, business advisory, tax, risk advisory and healthcare management. The Firm's professionals specialize in industries including construction & real estate, healthcare, manufacturing & distribution and utilities.

A major financial concern for many Gilmore Jasion Mahler (GJM) clients in the construction industry is finding good people to do the work. You'll often hear about the workforce shortage in manufacturing, but it is also having a profound impact on contractors. GJM Partner Bob Bobek, CPA lead's the firm's Construction Specialist Group, working with many clients in the industry. 

If you're interested in more articles and information impacting your construction business, be sure to sign up for Gilmore Jasion Mahler's free quarterly e-newsletter On-Site. You may also want to sign up for Focus, GJM's e-newsletter offering tax updates and strategy for businesses. Just click here for quick and easy sign up.

Bob Bobek is GJM's lead Audit Partner and has over 30 years of public accounting experience. As the lead of the Firm's construction team, Bob is very active with industry associations including the Association of General Contractors of Ohio (AGC), Ohio Contractors Association (OCA) and the Construction Financial Management Association of Northwest Ohio (CFMA).

Established in 1996, Gilmore Jasion Mahler, LTD (GJM) is the largest public accounting firm in Northwest Ohio, with offices in Maumee and Findlay. Locally owned, GJM offers cloud-based accounting and provides comprehensive services including assurance, business advisory, tax, risk advisory and healthcare management. The Firm's professionals specialize in industries including construction & real estate, healthcare, manufacturing & distribution and utilities.

Autotec Engineering President Tom Ballay will tell you he is a problem solver. He’s staring down perhaps the biggest problem to face the manufacturing sector for decades: the workforce shortage. Manufacturers across the region and around the country say they can’t find qualified, reliable people to fill open positions. The answer for some manufacturers may be waiting right inside Tom’s giant facility on Brent Drive in Toledo.

Autotec Engineering designs and builds automated systems to replace the workers that many manufacturers can’t find or can’t keep. Ballay says it isn’t about worker reduction.

“It’s about replacing jobs for workers they can’t find or jobs that have a heavy work component and huge workers comp claims.”

He says food packaging and agricultural technology are big areas of opportunity for Autotec Engineering: labor intensive businesses, many struggling to fill low level labor jobs, due to immigration labor issues and other challenges.

He cites a California chicken producer as an example. Tom says the business has people manually loading boxes of frozen chickens: 30 or 40 people tied up in boxing chickens. He says they consistently have 40 to 50 open positions for labor. Exposure to medical claims from these physically strenuous jobs is another risk.

Autotec designs and builds automated systems to do the work instead of people, taking product and wrapping, boxing and palletizing it with no humans involved. In other words, an elaborate automated system consisting of robots and conveyors would step in and do the work instead of people.

Ballay says e-commerce is another expanding opportunity: material handling that involves unpacking pallets, storing material and goods individually, then finding and shipping those materials and goods out again. He says think of the Amazons of the world. As the marketplace shifts, Tom says the two biggest trends he sees are automation of labor and e-commerce. He’s watching future trends as well.

“The next frontier in agricultural in terms of automating what’s now manual could be picking in the fields. One day elaborate automated systems could replace people in the fields.”

Autotec is growing in this dynamic and rapidly changing climate, he says. The business employs people of many skill levels: skilled programmers, controls engineers, tool makers and others. Tom says the company has 45 employees, compared to 17 only two years ago.

He says their focus has shifted as technology has transformed industry. Tom has clear objectives for where he wants to take the business.

“I want us to be an extension of other businesses and I want that from my vendors as well. GJM’s Bob Bobek is an in house advisor on financial planning. Any decision I make regarding commitment to capital or hiring, Bob’s been a part of.”

Tom says when Autotec lost its controller, Bob stepped in and acted as controller, reviewing work in progress and he still reviews that work. Tom says Bob’s been there for 25 years as a sounding board for ideas, people and key decisions.

“Tom is a visionary, always thinking down the road,” says Bobek. “That’s the way it should be.”

Tom thinks of Autotec as solution providers for their customers. He says he strives for quality by asking questions of himself and his team when it comes to meeting a customer’s needs.

• Did we correctly identify the issues and provide a solution?
• Does the solution enhance the business?
• Is there exceptional execution?

Autotec has been in its current location for only about a year. Tom sees growth on the horizon. He says he hopes to double the size of their shop. He’s thought ahead, purchasing six acres and leaving them room to grow.

There’s no question that robotics and automation have transformed the way we produce and move materials and goods. Those transformational changes will surely continue, and Tom sees Autotec as an important contributor. He says it’s pretty simple: he wants to be known for good engineering.

“If they said nothing else on our tombstones but that we’re good engineers, that would be great.”

Autotec Engineering will be a featured presenter at Gilmore Jasion Mahler’s spring Manufacturing Financial Executive Roundtables on automation in manufacturing. The events are scheduled for May 24 in Findlay and Maumee. The Findlay presentation is from 11:30 am-1 pm at Findlay Country Club and the Maumee presentation will be from 3-5 pm at Brandywine Country Club. The sessions are open to chief financial officers and other key financial decision makers within area manufacturing & distribution businesses. Those individuals can RSVP to info@gjmltd.com.

Established in 1996, Gilmore Jasion Mahler, LTD (GJM) is the largest public accounting firm in Northwest Ohio, with offices in Maumee and Findlay. Locally owned, GJM offers cloud-based accounting services and provides comprehensive services including assurance, business advisory, tax, risk advisory and healthcare management. The Firm’s professionals specialize in industries including construction & real estate, healthcare, manufacturing & distribution and utilities.

Question: As I’m approaching retirement age, I am considering moving my savings from a traditional IRA to a Roth so the money is taxed now rather than when I start receiving payments. Is this something you would recommend?

Tax Partner Dave Baymiller’s answer:  These Roth IRA conversions need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.  You need to consider your current and projected future tax brackets, your cash on hand to pay the tax on the conversion, your estate plan, your time horizon, the expectation of growth in the fund, and your expectations on needing to tap the funds during your retirement. One nice thing about the Roth IRA is that you do not need to start taking mandatory distributions after you reach age 70 ½.  There are also some nice estate planning benefits associated with the Roth. Because you do not need to take the distributions at age 70 ½ , the IRA can grow to a larger amount than what you might experience under the traditional IRA rules which would leave more tax free money later on for your heirs.  Also, by paying the income tax now, you will be reducing the size of your estate and effectively prepaying the heirs’ future income tax without it being recognized as a taxable gift.

Dave Baymiller is a partner in the tax services area with over thirty years of public accounting experience. He practices exclusively in the area of federal, state and local taxation with an emphasis on tax planning and consulting. Learn more about Dave Baymiller’s expertise and how to contact him.