You send invoices by email, receipts stay in the car, and you only download bank statements when your accountant asks for them. Every month starts with the same search for missing paperwork. When arranging accounting in Prešov, it is worth giving the first conversation more attention than simply asking about the monthly fee.
A working arrangement should be specific. You know which documents to provide, when to send them and who to contact when something changes in the business. Your accountant understands how the company operates and does not have to guess what happened every time an unfamiliar transaction appears. The points below will help you prepare for an initial meeting or improve an existing arrangement.
Start by explaining how the business actually operates
Saying that you have a small Slovak limited liability company, or s.r.o., tells an accountant little about the work involved. A company with a few regular customers has different records from a business with a shop, a card terminal and stock. Employees, overseas suppliers and several bank accounts also affect the scope.
Prepare an approximate monthly count of sales and purchase invoices. Add your payment methods, number of employees and whether you trade internationally. Mention changes you are already planning. If you intend to hire your first employee in two months, your accountant should hear about it before the employee's first day.
For an established business, a sample month can help. You can prepare anonymised documents for an initial assessment. These show, for example, whether you use different currencies, whether payments can be matched easily and how many separate systems produce the records.
Agree on one way to deliver documents
Decide whether documents will go through a shared folder, an accounting application or another agreed channel. What matters is knowing where to find the complete set for each month. If some arrive by email and others through phone messages, duplicates are easy to create.
Agree on simple file naming rules as well. A file named with a date and invoice number is easier to find than fifteen files called "scan". When taking a photograph, check that the entire document is visible and the text is readable. Send every page of a multipage invoice.
Set a procedure for late documents too. If a forgotten invoice turns up after the monthly handover, mark it as an addition and identify the period it belongs to. Quietly placing it in an old folder may go unnoticed. You will find a practical breakdown in What Documents Should You Send Your Accountant Each Month?.
Separate the document deadline from the filing deadline
The date for sending documents to your accountant is a working deadline within your arrangement. It must leave time for checking and obtaining missing information. It should not automatically be the final day of a statutory filing period.
Agree on who will flag missing records and how you will answer questions. If the person who approves an invoice is away for two weeks, someone else needs to cover that responsibility. Otherwise, processing can stop at a transaction that only that person can explain.
Clarify the approval of filings and payments too. Who checks the prepared figures? Who submits the return, and who actually makes the payment? Dividing these tasks explicitly is useful even in a small company where the managing director does most of the work.
Ask what information you will receive
A regular overview of unpaid customer invoices or supplier bills approaching their due dates can help with running the business. Establish which reports are included in the service and how often you will receive them.
If you need to track results by project, say so at the outset. Your accountant may need you to label documents with a project number when you hand them over. Allocating an entire year's records to projects afterwards is harder, particularly when only the person who ordered something knows why it was purchased.
Ask which period the figures fully cover. A monthly report with missing supplier invoices can change once those invoices arrive. Knowing this helps when deciding whether the company can afford another purchase or needs to wait for customer payments.
A fee needs a clearly defined service
When reviewing a quotation, check what the monthly fee includes and what is charged separately. Ask about payroll, year-end work, representation and any corrections to earlier periods. It is also useful to know how the fee will change as the business grows.
One accounting entry does not necessarily mean one document. Ask for an explanation using a typical invoice or bank statement from your company. The same number in two quotations may describe different amounts of work.
You do not need an exact document count at the first meeting. Provide a reasonable estimate and agree on when you will compare it with the actual volume. How Much Does Accounting Cost for a Slovak s.r.o.? covers this in more detail.
Have access and responsibilities explained
The company should know where its accounting records are stored and who can access them. Use properly assigned permissions for electronic portals. Personal passwords, bank login details and the PIN for your identity card should not be part of a routine document handover.
Under Section 5 of the Slovak Accounting Act, appointing an external person to keep the accounts does not remove the accounting entity's statutory responsibility. This is another reason to put the service scope and document handover arrangements in writing. Slovak Accounting Act.
An in-person meeting can be practical when arranging accounting in Prešov, especially at the beginning. The day-to-day relationship will depend mainly on the procedures you agree. Before your first conversation, note where extra work currently arises and describe a typical month. If you are discussing your company's accounting with Hanesy, you can include these details in your initial message.