1) What are the most urgent and most important needs right now?
Taxes: Does your Tax Preparer have everything they need?
Audit: Is there an audit happening currently?
Financing: Are you looking to securing loans or going through a fundraising round?
Personnel: Did an accountant/bookkeeper/controller leave recently?
Compliance: Is there a legal or compliance issue you need to resolve asap?
2) Financial Statements (composed of Income Statement or Profit and Loss Statement and Balance Sheet)
How important are FS to you? Do you rely on them to understand the business's performance?
When was the last time you had reliable FS?
How often do you need them: Monthly, Quarterly, Annually?
Besides yourself, your executive team, and your Tax Preparer, who else needs to see them?
When do you need updated FS by?
3) What are the most important accounting/bookkeeping/finance duties in your company? And which of these have been done by your previous Accountant/Bookkeeper?
Revenue: Sending Invoices to Clients
Expenses: Paying Bills and Organizing Expenses
Payroll and Contractors
Regular reconciliations and reporting
Updating Quickbooks or other Accounting Software
Updating Tax Preparer
4) Banking and Software
Bank: Who do you bank with?
Accounting: Is your accounting on Quickbooks Online? If not, which software?
Payroll: If there's payroll, which service do you use?
Retail Sales: If there's POS, which service do you use?
Management: Does your team use a project/task management software? If so, which one?
Expense: Do you use an expense management software? If so, which one?
Please list any other software relevant the business uses.
5) Planning
Are you satisfied with your current Tax Preparer? If not, why?
What are your goals for your business for the next year? For the next 3 years?
Are there any new ventures or businesses that you are considering to start?