5 Qualities You Should Look for in a Franchise Accountant

From the initial purchase to selling, finance is an essential component to business franchise at every stage. Think of the thousands of bills and coins that pass through your company. You could manage the cash flow on your own, but you need to consider two things that might make the task a bit too challenging for you.

The first is finding time to do your bookkeeping and learning how to do it properly. With your busy schedule, you may end up never leaving the office with such a heavy workload. The second is risk. Everything you will encounter will be completely new to you and failure comes with being a greenhorn, but there are no safety nets in franchising. One mistake can cost you your whole business and every penny you invested into it.

This is why it is important to find an accountant, especially with how much more complex a franchise is compared to other kinds of business. However, choosing an accountant can be difficult, unless you know which qualities you should be looking for.

Experienced with franchises

Whether it be through study or work experience, the accountant must know the obligations that are unique to franchises. Without a franchise accountant, chaos will ensue in your company, as your employees scramble to meet deadlines they had no idea about and government notices start piling in. Someone more experienced in franchise accounting may even be able to get you out of that storm and back into calmer waters.

Learn more about accountants specialising in franchise here.

Trustworthy

This may be true for all business partners, but is specifically a must for your franchise accountant. They will be handling not just the company budget, but usually your own income as well. Since you’ll be using your own money to jumpstart your business before you can get to see profits, you need someone whom you can rely on to direct that money to the shared goals of your company - and not into their own pocket.

Skilled at assessments

Accountants do more than just fulfill the financial obligations of their business. With the huge amounts of data that they work with, they should be able to use that information to give you a status report of the present and future. Most accounting software give you all the tools they need to examine, calculate, and present your company’s financial data. The only thing left is a set of skilled hands to work on them. With so much information at their disposal, they should be...

Capable of offering advice

The goals of your franchise accountant should coincide with yours - after all, your success is theirs as well. A good franchise accountant will help you reach this goal faster by offering advice whenever applicable. If you know that this accountant will have your best interests at heart, you can never go wrong with following their advice. At any moment that you encounter a financial problem you don’t fully understand, they should be there to assist you.

Dedication to compliance

Your franchise comes with multiple obligations imposed by different parties. Some will be from your local government’s laws and procedures, while others come from the franchisor agreement and other business contracts. You may even be under the jurisdiction of international law, depending on how far you’ve expanded. Whatever responsibilities you may have, a great franchise accountant should make sure that everything is going smoothly. By reviewing your documents and spreadsheets, not a single mistake should go unnoticed by an experienced team.

Keep these qualities in mind when finding a franchise accountant to ensure that you have a prosperous business partnership. It may be hard to find one perfect in all qualities, but it usually develops further as the relationship grows. You can also use this as a framework to know which areas your current franchise accountant should improve on.

Still unsure about your decision? Check out this handy guide for more details on choosing an accountant.

At D&V, our Franchise Accountants can work with you throughout the complexities of the franchise business model. Schedule a consultation with us to get a more in-depth explanation of our processes.