Startup Accounting
How to Evaluate Your Accountant or Bookkeeper
Collated by Aparna Devalla, CPA
Curated by Rubric Financial
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Red Flags in Your Current Provider
- Books are consistently more than 30 days behind month-end — this means you are making decisions based on stale data and are not fundraise-ready.
- Financials are prepared on cash-basis only with no accrual adjustments — this is inadequate for any startup planning to raise institutional capital.
- Bank accounts and credit cards are not reconciled monthly — unreconciled accounts accumulate errors that become exponentially harder to fix over time.
- Your accountant is unfamiliar with startup-specific items like deferred revenue, stock-based compensation, convertible notes, or SAFEs.
Related Resources
Startup Accounting
GAAP Basics for Startups
Understand the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles that every startup needs to follow, from revenue recognition to accrual accounting.
Startup AccountingCapEx vs OpEx: Expense Classification
When to capitalize vs expense costs — and how misclassification affects your financials and taxes.
Startup AccountingWhy Your Bank Balance Doesn't Match Your P&L
Understand why your cash position and income statement tell different stories — and why investors care about accrual-basis financials over bank balances.
