A CPAs Perspective: Why You Should or Shouldnt Work with a Startup

Kruze Consulting’s CPAs know what government incentives are available to help cut startups burn – our firm has executed almost $10 million in startup R&D tax credits last year. From planning for funding or investor changes, to advice on equity planning and financial modeling, our team offers the insight and value-added services startups need to go from startup to standout. At our firm, we calculate burn rate on both a cash basis and an accrual basis.

• Here at Thomas Huckabee CPA, we understand the challenges startups’ face and how important it is to acquire users and paying customers as quickly as possible.
• There’s often no predicting what you’ll be doing next year, let alone three years from now.
• Additionally, the need to do Federal Withholding on payments to foreign owners may depend on the specifics of the tax treaty with the owner’s country, requiring us to review the documents and establish a policy.
• As CPAs it’s an exciting opportunity to provide strategic and financial guidance at important moments in a startup’s journey.
• From SaaS to healthtech to hardware to ecommerce, we have specialized CPAs and accountants on staff who can help your company navigate the VC landscape and manage your growth.

Accounting Today is a leading provider of online business news for the accounting community, offering breaking news, in-depth features, and a host of resources and services. Our accounting advice for startups is based on a long history with new ventures. Of course, ours is not the only start up accounting firm in Chicago or around the U.S. Like it or not, paperwork and digital documentation is the backbone of any business.

Tip #4: Consult with tax and accounting professionals who have experience serving companies like yours

We strongly suggest you have your books and taxes in order prior to beginning a fund raise from potential investors. Here at Thomas Huckabee CPA, we understand the challenges startups’ face and how important it is to acquire users and paying customers as quickly as possible. As a startup founder your main focus is https://dodbuzz.com/running-law-firm-bookkeeping/ usually on marketing, operations, getting traction and understanding if you have the right ‘product market fit’. By hiring an outsourced accounting firm you can focus on your core business activities which include building your product, developing relationships, creating partnerships, and marketing and sales.

Plus, tech companies face the added obstacle of competing on a global scale when they may start off no bigger than a local brick-and-mortar business. This is one of the reasons why Huddleston Tax CPAs continues to employ experienced accountants with a long history with tech clients and startups. “Akshay, Kimberly, Jay, and the entire ShayCPA team has been a partner to Runway since the beginning. They have managed all of our monthly bookkeeping and necessary federal and state tax returns, while also handling additional, more specific matters such as R&D tax credits and state-specific sales tax filings. They have been responsive, flexible, and incredible partners to work with since our Seed round, and we have scaled with us even as we more than 6x’d the company.

Improve Your Startup’s Cash Flow With These Workforce Management Tactics

Clearly communicating the numbers and the systems behind those numbers allow for stability and growth. Using the numbers to identify both problems and opportunities will help a business in multiple ways. In the same way that a floppy disc as the “Save” button is wildly outdated, so too does “bookkeeping” when applying to ecommerce companies. While companies of yore had legitimate paper trails, more and more businesses are completely digital, from their invoices to their accepted payments. An ecommerce accountant does everything a CPA would, but with your digital space, this means collecting, analyzing, and reporting the financial data of your business. Having a CPA specializing in ecommerce is invaluable especially where “shipping” of goods is concerned.

If you are trying to reach out to potential investors or raise funds then you will need to have high-quality financial statements which are essential for tax reporting and providing updates to them. Most startups don’t earn a significant amount of revenue in their initial stages, so carefully managing the funds provided by venture capital investors is essential. The first piece of information your client needs is to understand the length of their runway, or how long their available cash will last, before they reach their zero cash or cash out date. To do that your client needs to understand their burn rate, which is the amount of money the company is spending over time. For tax planning purposes, your CPA should have extensive knowledge of R&D tax credits and startup tax incentives.