The accounting job often feel like an endless stream of minutiae and little things that keep landing on your desk all day long. Incoming bank transactions, new bills from vendors, customer payments that need to be recorded, overdue invoices that need to be chased, payroll runs and contractor payments. You get the idea.

But what about the big stuff? Many accountants get lost in the weeds and forget the larger things they should be focused on to deliver value to business owners. Overall, I’d say these are the five key jobs your accountant should be paying attention to and doing all the time:

Job #1: To build a reliable, cost-effective accounting system

This is your accountant’s first and foremost responsibility. It involves choosing the right software and apps, setting everything up correctly, maintaining your QBO file and chart of accounts, and creating workarounds for things that don’t work like they’re supposed to (which happens all the time in the accounting world). In short, your accountant’s job is to build the accounting machine and keep it running.

Job #2: To keep your daily/weekly/monthly accounting operations running smoothly

This is the meat-and-potatoes of every accountant’s job: it’s called operational accounting. Basically, your accountant should be handling everything that’s required to keep the accounting and financial side of the business running smoothly. This includes managing your bank feeds and bank rules, overseeing your bank and merchant accounts, handling invoicing and customer payments, entering and paying vendor bills, making sure your employees and contractors get paid on time, and troubleshooting the strange assortment of accounting problems and issues that seem to pop up all the time.

Job #3: To deliver accurate, on-time financial reporting

As I mentioned in my e-book, the whole point of accounting is to give business owners accurate, timely financials that tell them what’s happening with the business. Doing this consistently isn’t as easy as it sounds, and that’s where 99% of bookkeepers fail. The financials need to be prepared and organized correctly (in accordance with standard accounting practices), any problems or irregularities need to be reviewed and fixed before the reports hit the owner’s inbox, and everything needs to be delivered on-time (not 30 days later).

Job #4: To create a stress-free year-end accounting and tax process

If you read my article about classic accounting mistakes, you know that the year-end accounting cleanup is a major problem and stress-creator for business owners. Not only does it indicate underlying operational problems, it prevents you from doing any type of intelligent tax planning with your tax preparer (like accelerating expenses, deferring income, or pursuing specific tax deduction strategies). Basically, your accountant should have solid routines in place and should be doing specific things all year long to keep your accounting on track for a smooth year-end close. There will still be extra accounting work in December and January (there always is, it’s the nature of the beast) but it will all be do-able and you won’t need to file an unnecessary tax extension.

Job #5: To provide useful feedback, analysis, and advice

For many accountants, this is the most challenging part of the job: taking all the boring stuff you do every day and translating it into useful information that helps business owners make better decisions. Your accountant should know the numbers inside and out (so you don’t have to) and should highlight key issues and trends you need to be aware of. They should keep a close eye on expenses and should be able to provide quick, clear answers to any questions you ask. Lastly, they should look at your business and financial reports with an objective, skeptical mindset and should point out things that you might not necessarily see or be aware of (because that’s what good accountants are supposed to do).