As wineries search for growth in today’s digital world, the accountant vs bookkeeper debate has become all the more relevant. Innovation, technology, and eCommerce have made traditional marketing strategies for wineries nearly obsolete.
As RaboBank recently highlighted, only those wineries who respond to market changes with the needed urgency will thrive, and wine businesses that have leveraged the power of eCommerce have already seen massive returns. In this effort, the need for winery accounting and bookkeeping management has also risen.
Accountant vs Bookkeeper: Who Does What?
Before we get into which professional is right for your winery, it’s important to highlight the differences between them; each specializes in different responsibilities between financial and operational management within your winery business.
An accountant is responsible for recording and presenting the financial well-being of a business. The most pertinent profiles for Ecommerce wineries are management accountants and tax accountants.
Management accountants take charge of representing the financial performance of your digital business through drafting budgets, reconciling balance sheets, and analyzing financial reports stored on your eCommerce platform, among other actions.
On the other hand, a tax accountant does tax reporting management. That includes calculating your business taxes and offering counsel on your business strategy to minimize tax audits and lessen the possibilities of tax law breaches.
Unlike accountants, a bookkeeper records any and every financial transaction that your winery does. They are important team members, as they are responsible for identifying, recording, and labeling the purpose of every financial transaction in your winery.
Is an Accountant or a Bookkeeper Right for my Winery?
The Ecommerce winery business model calls for both management and tax accountants. Management accountants are important as they provide you with the financial insight you need to gauge the effectiveness of your business strategy and make better financial decisions. While some winery executives feel that they can handle finances on their own, doing so will take them away from other important areas of business development, like sales and digital marketing.
Similarly, tax accountants are all the more important now than ever as winery businesses now need to enter into unchartered waters of eCommerce. Onboarding an accounting professional who has the right legal and tax knowledge in the digital field will steer you away from possible tax infringement.
Bookkeepers take care of major responsibilities. However, practice shows that they are often too bogged down by data entry tasks that they don’t have the time to deal with possible financial issues, or provide actionable analysis and insight into the business’s key performance indicators (KPIs). While accountants can absorb the role of a bookkeeper, they tend to be overqualified and too expensive for the role. Furthermore, hiring all three professionals individually is too costly for most wineries, and the winery owner or executive is still responsible for making sure all three individuals work together seamlessly.
Luckily, the solution to this financial dilemma can be solved by getting in touch with Protea Financial.
Protea Financial: Ultimate Winery Accounting & Bookkeeping Services
Protea Financial is an accounting and bookkeeping firm that designs and implements customized accounting solutions for businesses. We are not a tax preparer, but we support businesses of all sizes in managing their finances so that they can focus on other facets of their business development.
Our services include tax schedules, managing financial accounts, preparing accounting documentation, and bookkeeping.
For wineries, we have an all-inclusive service that covers responsibilities needed for tax and financial management and bookkeeping, and our services are significantly less expensive than if a winery were to individually hire each professional.
By housing all professionals under one team, we deliver the same services at a rate that’s below the average marketing-price while maintaining premium quality and accuracy. Furthermore, the winery’s leadership does not need to spend time training, overseeing, and making sure unrelated financial professionals are working together productively.
Our team, led by Zane Stevens, consists of almost 25 accountants that, together, bring decades worth of accounting and financial managerial experience to our projects. We are poised to assist you in driving your winery business to success.
Get in touch with us to set up a consultation for your winery accounting and bookkeeping needs. We will conduct a thorough evaluation of your winery financial life-cycle to develop and propose a strategy that will lead you to financial freedom.
Set up your evaluation today.
