What are accounting costs?
Accounting fees are the costs associated with bookkeeping and producing financial reports for a company.
What do they include?
Accounting costs generally include:
- Costs related to the purchase or rental of accounting software or accounting management systems,
- Salaries for accounting staff,
- Financial statement audit costs (to ensure compliance with standards),
- Professional consultancy fees (e.g. accountant’s or financial adviser’s fees),
- Costs associated with the production and distribution of financial documents (e.g. tax returns),
- Costs of holding accounting meetings,
- The cost of training accounting staff.
Depending on the company, these accounting fees may vary.
How are they garthered?
Accounting costs can be grouped in different ways. However, one of the most commonly used methods is to group these costs by category. For example, personnel costs, overheads or selling expenses. In addition, some companies choose to group these accounting costs by month or quarter. It all depends on each company, and a number of factors need to be taken into account to determine the most appropriate way of grouping accounting expenses.
Where are they registered?
Accounting costs are most often recorded in the company’s general expenses account. In other words, accounting costs are recorded as an expense in the company’s profit and loss account. These costs must therefore be correctly classified so that the company’s financial statements are as accurate as possible. To achieve this, receipts and invoices must be properly recorded.
Optimising your accounting costs
Using online accounting software
Using online accounting software reduces the cost of purchasing and maintaining traditional accounting software. One of the main reasons for this is the ease of use and updating of online accounting software.
Hiring a part-time accountant
By recruiting a part-time accountant, a company can be sure of benefiting from the skills of an accounting specialist, while reducing the costs associated with the accountant’s full-time salary.
Training an employee in accounting
By training an employee in accounting, a company can reduce the cost of hiring an external accountant and then have an employee who is competent in the field.
Verify regularly invoices and expenditure
By regularly checking invoices and expenses, the company can avoid unnecessary expenditure.
Negotiating or establishing partnerships
By negotiating or establishing partnerships with accounting service providers, a company can reduce its accounting costs.
Automate
By automating the various accounting processes, a company makes its work easier and reduces human error, saving time and therefore money.
Are accounting fees deductible?
Accounting costs are usually associated with tax-deductible business expenses. In other words, a company can deduct its accounting costs from taxable income to reduce its income tax.