Doing taxes can be a lot of work. While it might be tempting to simply go to the nearest tax place to get your taxes done, sometimes you would be well advised to shell out a little bit more money to get the job done by a genuine professional. While a professional accountant may run you some more money, he or she will help you to stay on the right side of the IRS. He or she will also allow you to get as much of a refund as you legally can, which in many cases will more than make up for the fee the accountant will charge you. The following are some tips for finding a qualified accountant.

Certification

A certified accountant is a trained professional with a bona fide certification. The technical term is a Certified Public Accountant or CPA, and this term denotes a professional who has taken an exam and undergone extensive training in the field of accounting. While most people do not need much of the accountant's knowledge base, it's good to know you will have access to more than you technically need. After all, how often in life does a person know the full extent of his or her needs? Besides, the cheap places tend to offer little more than a few weeks of training -- meaning that the person you could have doing your taxes might have been delivering pizzas a month or so ago.

Experience

While it is not necessary to pick a seasoned veteran, many accountants get their careers started by interning in accountant offices. This experience gets them started on a practical track, showing them the skills they need the most when dealing with clients, the IRS and the myriad laws an accountant has to deal with. While experience is only one indicator, it does tend to indicate someone who is a serious professional.

Top Notch Software

Some people say that it is a poor craftsman who blames his tools. But even a true master can only accomplish so much with bare hands and good intentions. Often, the most powerful tool an accountant sports these days is powerful software that keeps deductions, income and other factors carefully organized. With this level of organization, your accountant can focus on doing the more intelligent work like making sure you get everything where it needs to go to get as much back as humanly possible. Software isn't everything, but it certainly makes a difference in helping a good accountant do a great job.