Ask HN: As a solo developer, how can I find a solid accountant? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: As a solo developer, how can I find a solid accountant?

I am a solo developer with a SaaS product that makes a substantial amount of money ($500k+). I think it has gotten to the point where I could use more clever accounting to save money and leverage the income better.

How can I find a solid accountant (preferably someone that works remote, and has experience with SaaS businesses)?

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We had an accountant but he was unreliable. We then went for a big-four. A real headache: unresponsive, uninformed, sending tax forms at the last minute before the deadline, didn't reply to emails or questions, didn't look after us. They practically worked for the revenue service, and they were not. I also had to correct them on several occasions (I'm no accountant) when they wanted to apply VAT on a VAT exempted invoice. They'd also write documents blaming us for mistakes they made filling forms for social security and asked us to sign them (yeah, right). We at least used the passive term not to put the blame on them in the document.

We're moving to another one of the big-four, and we drafted a letter of mission to include protections of the things we suffered from with the first one. We'll see what goes. If it goes south, we'll move to another one. C'est la vie.

I’m sort of in the same boat - I live in small town and it’s a struggle to explain SAAS model to some local accountants. Add crypto to the mix and it becomes a real struggle.

That said, you don’t need a regular accountant, if I may be presumptuous, unless you’re looking for bookkeeper (in my experience they just want to do taxes). What you need is a CPA - someone who can help you with managerial accounting & tax planning etc.

As for bookkeeping I’m thinking about trying Pilot [0] (not affiliated).

[0] - https://pilot.com/

I found one by asking friends who operated a local accelerator. They usually know someone who is startup-friendly, i.e. more patient with newbies & poor bookkeeping, gives some good advice for free, knows how to get around the laws and implement typical startup stuff.

Where is the revenue coming from? Locally, globally, from a single country or highly diversified? You can't optimize much in terms of taxation, but this is highly dependent on where you live.

I have preference for firms that typically have a larger staff with specialists.

How to find a good one? Word of mouth or pick one of the top firms in your area. You don't get big by being bad at what you do.

"You don't get big by being bad at what you do."

I don't know, I could name a lot of exceptions. Many of them just have to be good a big client and unresponsive to smaller ones. Ben Horowitz named a top firm in his book for screwing them and they're still a top firm.

it seems someone skipped the tutorial on "building a solid team"; elaborate.

about accountant: find some dropouts from big finance companies, they should be cheap, and with solid knowledge.

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