Dallas accountants are facing many challenges in 2024. The mixed outlook concerning inflation, interest rates, and a potential recession impacts optimism for business growth.
Preparation to overcome a variety of challenges is key to helping accountants and companies excel this year. The following are some of the main areas to focus on for successful navigation.
Discover the top challenges facing Dallas accountants and methods to overcome them.
Financial Forecasts
The mixed economic outlook and market volatility make the creation of accurate financial forecasts both challenging and essential. Therefore, business leaders must engage in scenario planning and reevaluate forecasts for sales, expenses, and cash. Leaders also should test and retest assumptions and model cash flow, burn rate, and liquidity under different scenarios.
Cash Flow
Softening consumer spending is causing many accountants to focus on improving cash flow. As a result, many accountants are implementing cost containment and deferring planned investments to increase company liquidity.
Improving the efficiency of accounts receivable (AR) and accounts payable (AP) processes supports steady cash flow. Focusing on expenses, past-due invoices, operating cash flow, and related metrics also helps support cash flow. Plus, generating and tracking cash reports daily helps uncover changes that impact future business decisions.
Tax Law Changes
Accountants must effectively navigate and apply changes in tax laws to free up funds to cover business challenges. Therefore, using accounting software to accurately create easily accessible records helps manage a complex tax year.
The main tax changes resulted from the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes a new alternative minimum tax for corporations and renewable energy credits. Also, accountants must pay attention to the bills aimed to extend provisions of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, including tax breaks for small businesses.
Expense Management
Accountants are expected to deliver increased efficiency and tightly manage expenses due to the mixed economic outlook. Therefore, they must increase expense analysis for large costs. For instance, accountants must reduce the cost of goods sold to increase the points of gross profit margin. They also must increase control over small expenses, such as travel costs and challenges with remote workforces.
Payroll Management
Changing state and federal payroll laws and regulations impact payroll tax withholdings for employees in different locations. Also, payroll managers have challenges managing state income taxes for remote employees due to the complexity of determining primary work location. Violations can result in audits and tax penalties. Therefore, many payroll managers are automating their payroll processes.
Cloud-based payroll platforms help calculate earnings, deductions, company contributions, taxes, and paid time off for multiple jurisdictions. These calculations help with taxes, forms, direct deposit, and related issues.
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