If you don't have a significant number of investors then dividends can be a good way to save on income tax. If you do have investors however you're throwing company money back to them which is not good for you and not that good for them.
For smaller companies the vast majority of accounting is not accounting but just book keeping. This is actually easier than it seems (it took me 4 years to realise this though) and is much easier if you use www.xero.com than Quickbooks. I hated all the usual "accounting" packages as they didn't guide me. Xero does a great job and whilst not perfect is definitely the best of the bunch and worth the monthly fee.
From having run 3 (small) companies this is what I now focus on:
1. Making sure I keep a note of everything that I spend and what it was (if you ignore everything else, do this)
2. Keep a note of which account I spent it from e.g. petty cash, bank account, paid directly by me
3. Making my "list of accounts" (i.e. categories of spending) meaningful to me and ignoring all the numbers that accountants give to them. Whether it's "domestic flights", "taxis", "computer hardware" or "web services" - I make sure it's a category that's meaningful and actionable
4. Paying my salary taxes when they're due & use a payroll company
5. (easy if you've done the others well) Filing my tax return on time
It's through getting all of these wrong that I've learned which ones were right :)
One last thing that I've found very helpful is having a google spreadsheet form with a link on my iPhone homepage to enter the amont and detail of purchases as I make them. This makes it much easier when it comes to remembering what each individual bank transaction was for when you import them.
The only problem is, once you do desire to hire an accountant, they often want you to use Quickbooks. And, this can often be good because it'll save on how much time they spend on your file since they can easily open the file in their own Quickbooks, and thus reduces their fees. However, the front load to learn and understand Quickbooks costs you a lot of your own time.
They want you to use Quickbooks (or any other software they request) because they don't want to have a learning curve. It's your business, so find someone that is willing to work with you. Besides a few laws in physics, everything is negotiable.
For smaller companies the vast majority of accounting is not accounting but just book keeping. This is actually easier than it seems (it took me 4 years to realise this though) and is much easier if you use www.xero.com than Quickbooks. I hated all the usual "accounting" packages as they didn't guide me. Xero does a great job and whilst not perfect is definitely the best of the bunch and worth the monthly fee.
From having run 3 (small) companies this is what I now focus on:
1. Making sure I keep a note of everything that I spend and what it was (if you ignore everything else, do this)
2. Keep a note of which account I spent it from e.g. petty cash, bank account, paid directly by me
3. Making my "list of accounts" (i.e. categories of spending) meaningful to me and ignoring all the numbers that accountants give to them. Whether it's "domestic flights", "taxis", "computer hardware" or "web services" - I make sure it's a category that's meaningful and actionable
4. Paying my salary taxes when they're due & use a payroll company
5. (easy if you've done the others well) Filing my tax return on time
It's through getting all of these wrong that I've learned which ones were right :)
One last thing that I've found very helpful is having a google spreadsheet form with a link on my iPhone homepage to enter the amont and detail of purchases as I make them. This makes it much easier when it comes to remembering what each individual bank transaction was for when you import them.