Q. Why hire a professional bookkeeper?
A. Hiring a professional bookkeeper lets you concentrate on the core purpose of your business without losing the detail and attention needed in maintaining business records. Outsourced bookkeeping also gives you all the benefits and expertise required for business and personal accounting without the expense of a full time employee and their costly benefits package.
Q. What does a professional bookkeeper do?
A. A professional bookkeeper will take on many of the tedious tasks such as data entry, accounting reporting, and reconciliation. In addition, a professional bookkeeper becomes your liaison with paying clients, third party vendors, certified public accountants, and customers. Depending on your level of service, your bookkeeper will manage payroll, accounts receivable, accounts payable, inventory control, reports and records, and equipment depreciations and costs.
At A Busy Bookkeeper, we also specialize in helping you structure your accounting systems to suit your business. Our backgrounds in data management allows us to work with you in understanding the value of your financial information and design an effective and immediately implement financial reporting structure.
Q. Can I trust a consultant working off-site?
A. Any financial consultant is bound by legal expectations of confidentiality and privacy for their clients. You should always expect a signed confidentiality statement or clause in your contract.
There are no formulas for working with an accounting consultant and much depends on the relationship you are able to build together. The best measure of whether you’ve made a good hire is whether your consultant is completing the work contracted and doing the job well.
Q. What should I expect to know when hiring a professional bookkeeper?
A. Any good consultant will provide you with a clear list of services and rates from the very beginning of your association. In addition, you should have a signed contract that outlines not only the service package and price, but also a specified length of contract, terms and limitations, a scheduled review of services, and opportunities to reevaluate the package you purchased.
Q. Why should I store my financial data off-site?
A. Offsite storage has a number of benefits including protection from accidental data loss. Your bookkeeper should always have a current backup of your personal or businesses financial data that can be readily made available to you should your computer systems suffer data loss.
Computer data storage is also more of a concern for consultants and small businesses than they are for larger companies. Unless your business utilizes multiple servers, chances are good that you hold computer memory and data storage at a premium. Storing the bulk of your accounting data with your professional bookkeeper will free your computing systems for the core of your business.
Offsite storage does not mean you shouldn’t have intimate knowledge of your finances and how this data is organized. Your bookkeeper should always be willing and able to provide up-to-date reports, back-up files, and recommendations for greater fiscal health and better fiscal data management.
Q. It is absolutely necessary to keep detailed receipts?
A. Every day I meet business people who tell me what a pain in the neck it is to obtain receipts and keep them. Many of them claim that it is too much paper or it is not important. Some people even believe they can claim up to 35% to 40% of their commission income and would not be questioned.