No doubt about it, accounting often feels like a never-ending stream of minutiae and annoying little things that keep landing on your desk all day long. Debits and credits, new bank feed transactions, bank rule edits, customer payments, overdue invoices, new bills and bill payments, payroll runs and contractor payments. You get the idea.

But what about the big stuff? Many accountants get lost in the weeds (sometimes on purpose, “Nobody can find me in here!”) and lose sight of the larger things they should be doing to deliver value to clients.

If you’re a small business owner, I’d say these are the five key jobs your accountant should be remembering and paying attention to every day:

Job #1: To design and maintain your accounting system

This is your accountant’s first and foremost responsibility. It involves choosing the right software and apps, configuring everything correctly, customizing your QBO setup and chart of accounts as needed, creating workarounds for things that don’t work (which happens all the time in the accounting world), and helping you stay current with the latest tools and improvements. In short, your accountant’s job is to build the accounting machine and keep it running.

Job #2: To manage your daily, weekly, and monthly accounting operations

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 bills, making sure your team gets paid on time (employees and contractors), fulfilling any compliance or tax obligations that come in, and troubleshooting the assortment of unexpected problems and strange accounting and/or tech issues that seem to happen all the time.

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

As I mentioned in my e-book, the whole point of accounting is to give business owners accurate, timely numbers that tell them what’s happening with their business. Doing this consistently isn’t as easy as it sounds, and that’s why 99% of bookkeepers fall short. 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 they need to be delivered consistently and on-time (not 30-45 days later). When you’re getting solid, clean numbers from your accountant on a regular basis, it makes a big difference.

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

If you read my previous article about classic accounting mistakes, you know that “The Year-End Accounting Mess” is a major problem and stress-creator for many small 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 certain expenses or deferring income or pursuing specific tax deduction strategies). Basically, your accountant should be doing concrete things all year long (month in and month out) to keep your accounting on track and ensure a smooth, headache-free year-end close. There will still be extra accounting work in December and January (there always is) but it will be eminently do-able and you won’t have to file an irritating tax extension.

Job #5: To provide helpful feedback, analysis and advice when needed

This is arguably your accountant’s job most important job of all: to take all the boring stuff they’re doing day in and day out and translate it into useful information that helps you run your business. Your accountant should know the numbers inside and out (so you don’t have to) and highlight key issues and trends you need to be aware of. They should be able to provide quick, clear answers to any questions you ask. They should keep a close eye on expenses and tell you when something doesn’t look right. Lastly, they should constantly look at your business and financials with an objective mindset and point out things that you might not necessarily be aware of or want to hear (because that’s what good accountants are supposed to do).