Appointing An Accountant To Your New Business

When you start your own business in South Africa, you have to appoint an accountant to it, even when you expect things to be slow at the start. Many people could perhaps be a little put off by this prospect, but it happens to be not that big of a deal. Any time you appoint an accountant to a business, you in some way move away from the 'dream' or idea, and suddenly the business transforms into a 'real' business the moment an accountant is designated. All of a sudden things come to be proper. At the least this is the assumption that we typically have.

As mentioned previously, for any new company, an accountant has to be specially selected. Some may hear this word and without delay think that it is going to cost them thousands right from the start. This is often not true. It is important to distinguish between accountants and chartered accountants or auditors. The last mentioned is obviously much more expensive, but is only needed for larger companies with extremely elevated income and cash flow.

Normal accountants nevertheless, are typically considerably less expensive and more variable in their solution to your business. Their month to month fee structures usually also fluctuate from one to another. All things considered, what this boils down to is that although you will need to appoint someone such as this to supervise your business activities in so far as cash flow is involved, it need not be an expensive exercise. Nevertheless, important to remember is always that any financial officer in this capacity needs to have the mandatory credentials and qualifications to be able to be successfully appointed and recognized by the CIPC.

The CIPC is the committee responsible for all company registrations in the South African business place, and just about every new company established in the republic will have to be authorized via this governing body. The Companies And Intellectual Property Commission office works to ensure the formalization of any and all companies in the country. Basically they make sure that, among other things, your business name is unique enough to be able to be used in the market place. Other duties include the regulation of Intellectual Property, patents and so forth.

Coming back back to the topic though, the following accounting professions for reasons of assignment as accounting officers to companies are listed below. As it turns out there exactly 10 at the moment:

The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA), Auditors registered in terms of the provisions of the Auditing Profession Act, 2005(CA), The Southern African Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA), The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), The South African Institute of Professional Accountants (SAIPA), THE IAC who have obtained the Diploma in Accountancy (IAC), The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), The Chartered Institute of Business Management (MCIBM), The South African Institute of Business Accountants (SAIBA), The South African Institute of Government Auditors (SAIGA)

If the individual you wish to designate to your business as accounting officer is part of, or an active fellow member of any one of the bodies pointed out above, you should not have any problem in appointing them, and getting your business registered without this as a potential problem. Have a look at some great tips for business


------

Every business needs an accountant - appointing an accounting officer to your business or company need not be a diffcult task. You can also have a look at some essential tips for business owners