How to Work Effectively With Your Accountant in FreshBooks

If you work with a certified public accountant or bookkeeper, you know how valuable they are at providing an expert second opinion. Have a concern about your taxes? They’ll keep you compliant. Need help with financial reporting? They’ll get you organized. Auditing financial documents? They’ll help you work through it.

But working together can be difficult when you’re not on the same accounting platform. Numbers can get lost in translation, and time can be wasted sending information and reports back and forth when working through financial analysis or tax time.

Fortunately, FreshBooks built the perfect solution to keep you and your accountant on the same page. It’s called the Accountant role, and it’s only available in FreshBooks. This user role gives your accountant all the tools they need to do your financial reporting, file your taxes, and help you understand and grow your business. All done between you and your accountant, right in your FreshBooks account.

If your accountant is new to FreshBooks, no problem! The FreshBooks Accounting Partner Program provides your accountant or bookkeeper with all the resources and workflows needed when handling accountant responsibilities.

Together, with the support of FreshBooks, you can examine financial records, audit financial documents, tackle accountant duties, walk through accounting advisory services, and begin tax preparation.

What Is the Accountant Role?

The Accountant role gives your accounting professional access to the tools, reports, and information they need in FreshBooks to advise your business properly.

This includes the ability to:

• access accounting reports like the general ledger, balance sheet, and profit and loss report
• create and edit journal entries
• manage the chart of accounts
• review and manage invoices, expenses, payments, other income, and bank reconciliation

Your accounting professional will be able to generate reports and also have access to all the numbers they need to help you grow your business, save time with taxes, and see how your business is performing when looking at financial data.

That means you can finally take off your certified management accountant hat and assign those time-consuming tasks to your accountant.

How Do I Invite My Accountant to FreshBooks?

Inviting your management accountants or bookkeepers to FreshBooks is simple. Go to your Dashboard and select Add Team Member. Then follow the steps on this support page to walk through all the details. Review all role permissions (there are 2 for accountants) to familiarize yourself with them. Once you’ve invited them, your accounting professional will receive an email with instructions to log in.

What Will My Accountant See When I Invite Them?

Your accountant or bookkeeper will receive a simple email from your FreshBooks account, asking them to set up their own FreshBooks account.

You may be thinking, “Wait, does my accountant see everything in my FreshBooks account?” The short answer is no. The Accountant role is not the same as your Owner role.

Accountant role permissions allow your accountant or bookkeeper to view your:

• Dashboard
• Invoices and Other Income
• Expenses
• Reports
• Accounting (Chart of Accounts)

This gives them the financial data they need to evaluate your business’s financial position. These financial records are crucial for an accountant’s duties and responsibilities to your business’s overall financial health.

With all the accounting systems they do have access to, you might wonder what your accounting professional does not have access to.

Your accounting professionals will only have access to the information they need (like financial records). Your accounts and bookkeepers cannot:

• manage your Clients
• track time or view your Projects
• send invoices or estimates
• manage Bank Connections
• create recurring expenses or import a CSV file of expenses

But what if you want to give your accountant a higher level of access? You can use the FreshBooks Accountant – Full Access option, to allow them to manage invoicing, payments, expenses, and more—something that might be helpful for tax preparation.

Learn more about Team Member permissions for Accountant and Accountant – full Access roles in FreshBooks.

What Financial Statements Do They Focus On?

Financial information is the bread and butter for your accountants or bookkeepers. When using your FreshBooks Account, your financial advisors will act as your private accountants. They can focus on documents pertaining to financial statements, financial records, financial information, and, well you get the gist.

When preparing financial statements, understanding and keeping these financial records organized is extremely important.

Things to Keep in Mind

First things first, it’s not absolutely necessary to hire an accounting professional to help with your finances.

You may prefer to handle your books on your own rather than hire a certified financial analyst to stay more connected to your business.

That’s totally up to you! You might have impressive accounting skills and a good understanding of financial regulations all on your own. If that’s the case, great, FreshBooks has all the reports and accounting features you need to stay on track year-round.

But, if it’s not the case, and you trust an accountant or bookkeeper to help you save time on your books, or just appreciate having an expert review your financial position, you’ll love how easy it is to work together in FreshBooks.

Rest assured that your accountant or bookkeeper only has access to the areas of your business you want them to when reporting financial data.

Invite your accountant today and get started.

How FreshBooks Helps Alexis and Her Accountant Rebecca Focus on Growth Together