Comments on: Do you really need an accountant? https://berkonomics.com/?p=5540&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=do-you-really-need-an-accountant Dave Berkus' business insights Wed, 13 Mar 2024 01:00:14 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 By: Marc Kelley https://berkonomics.com/?p=5540&cpage=1#comment-163636 Wed, 13 Mar 2024 01:00:14 +0000 https://berkonomics.com/?p=5540#comment-163636 Good piece. Glad you distinguished between Bookkeeper and Accountant.

However, I would respectfully disagree about most accountant’s ability to provide analytical planning and anything heavily forward thinking. It has been my experience that many start up CEO grab their personal accountant and start with him/her. They are great at looking in the rear-view mirror and handling taxes. But maybe 1 in 4 have the ability to act and think like a forward-looking CFO.

Naturally I am biased but I believe the best combination is a fractional CFO with heavy up-front work that a good bookkeeper or even a basic accounting service can maintain the Dashboard and KPIs along with financial statement generation which a fractional CFO can review and approve.

Just my 2 cents.

Marc

]]> By: Gene Siciliano https://berkonomics.com/?p=5540&cpage=1#comment-163635 Tue, 12 Mar 2024 23:09:37 +0000 https://berkonomics.com/?p=5540#comment-163635 Solid advise, Dave, with insights from the trenches we’ve seen over the years:
First, founding CEOs often assume they can read and understand financial statistics, and even sometimes personally create them, mostly because they don’t want to spend money that isn’t going to marketing or R&D. The reality is that’s a poor use of their time and usually with substandard results.
Second, the distinction between an accountant and a bookkeeper is also often lost on founding CEOs. There is a huge difference, even if a bookkeeper thinks of themselves as accountants, and perhaps calls sthemselves an accountant, they may not be with the proper skills (which the CEO is usually not quaified to determine).

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