Why Small Business Owners Need a Bookkeeper

As a small business owner, you will have to wear many hats.  You will find yourself juggling between different roles and responsibilities since you are the general manager, human resources, and the operations specialist for your business.  There comes a point when the company’s growth may exceed the time you can dedicate to the accounting function.  This would be the ideal time to rethink your options to fulfill this new need – the solution may be to hire an expert bookkeeper.

To the small business world, bookkeeping is like flossing.  No one enjoys it.  You won’t notice for a while, and you can skip it totally.  You might doubt that you need to do it (No one is judging).

But bookkeeping is much more than tax hygiene. If it’s done right, it gives you a crystal-clear picture from which to base your business decisions on.

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Still trying to decipher if you need a bookkeeper…here’s a couple of myth busters for you.

Myth#1. You Don’t Need A Bookkeeper If You Have an Accounting Software

This is one of the biggest myths in the bookkeeping profession. Business owners believe that with accounting tools such as QuickBooks Online, Xero, or Wave, they can get by without the help of an accountant or bookkeeper.

While that may work in some instances, most business owners have no clue how to setup the software or how to correctly categorize transactions.  Bookkeepers understand the logic behind everything that goes on in an accounting system, they can easily explain to you why you should not simply label an income account as “Income” or the expense account as “Expenses”. Incomes may be derived from different sources, and so are expenses. As such, proper categorization is important.

Myth#2. Bookkeepers Are Data Entry Specialists

It not unusual to see a business owner hire a bookkeeper to do data entry work as 90% of their role.  Far from it, these professionals perform more than clerical tasks.  An expert bookkeeper can assist with the entire accounting process that begins with a transactions and end with closing the books.  Experienced bookkeepers can also perform multiple roles including payroll processing, filing quarterly sales and use tax, internal auditing, and cash flow management.  So, the next time you hire a bookkeeper, keep an open mind for them to tell you all the services they offer. You’ll be surprised to learn that most of them don’t actually do the clerical work they tend to be associated with.

Hiring a bookkeeper from the onset of your company’s operations will help create a perfect foundation for your operation to be built on. My recommendation is to skip the trial and error and hire a virtual bookkeeper to serve as an advisor to your company.  To know more, call us at +1 407-488-5334 or email us at info@bluefireaccounting.com

Having a bookkeeper on hand from the beginning will allow you to avoid foreseeable concerns and maximize your company’s overall financial success.

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