5 Things to Lookout for When Hiring an Accountant

• Reading Time: 7 Minutes
• Published: November 6, 2020
• Last Updated: February 7, 2025

Melbourne  is the most populous city in Victoria and the second-most populous city in Australia. Melbourne has a large number of businesses and residents. While it also ranked as one of the world’s most liveable cities, it is also one of the leading financial centres in the Asia-Pacific region. Melbourne houses the headquarters of many of Australia’s largest corporations and might be the right choice of your location if you want to start a new business or expand your business. Another interesting thing to note is that Melbourne has the highest number of cafes and restaurants per number of people than any other city in the world. So, if in case you are a restaurant business owner in Melbourne you how high the competition is.

Talking about competition, businesses need to stay at the top of the game all the time in every aspect. Be it sales, human resources, operations, or finance, precision in each function is crucial to help any business achieve its goals. While the business owner can handle every function of a business to some extent, but the financial experts best handle the finance function. Hiring an accountant or having an accounts department according to the need of the business becomes an unavoidable task. Also, there is the option of online accountants, also known as virtual accountants which have many benefits for the organization. After understanding the business requirement, you can decide on what method best serves your purpose.

There more than 400 Accounting firms in Melbourne CBD alone, and there is a never-ending option when it comes to virtual accountants. But if you are looking for accountants in Melbourne or accountants in Australia in general, you must make sure your accountants fill the following criteria –

• Qualification – Your accountant needs to be certified by any of the professional accounting bodies – CPA Australia (CPA), Institute of Public Accountants (IPA), or Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA).
• Years of Experience – The more experienced your accountant is it going to more beneficial to your organisation as they tend to be more skilled and resourceful. But hiring an accountant with higher years of experience has higher cost implications as well.
• Industry Experience – Every industry comes with challenges of its own, and so hiring an accountant who doesn’t have experience in your industry will only make things harder for you which defeats the purpose of hiring an accountant.
• Cost – Hiring an accountant should not be financially burdening to your organisation. If you are not an accounting firm, then the price involves in hiring an accountant is just an overhead expense. It is essential to hire an accountant as per the capacity of your business.
• Computer Skills – Accounting is made easy with a lot of accounting software, and it is an essential computer skill that your accountant must-have. An accountant must be proficient in your choice of accounting software that your organisation is currently using. And in case you are not using any software at present, it is best to hire someone proficient in the top accounting software like MYOB, Xero or QuickBooks, so that you can take advantage of the same.

When it comes to hiring an accountant in Melbourne, a large number of businesses opt for virtual accountant services as it has much more benefit over hiring a full-time accountant. Whether you choose to hire a full-time accountant or hire a virtual accountant to make sure they fulfil the above criteria as it can make a world of difference to your finance function.

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