In the last few years an ever increasing number of people have taken the decision to start their own business. There are many many reasons why so many have decided to strike out in this challenging direction during one of the worst financial recessions that we have possibly known.
However one thing is for sure, that none of them started their businesses because they love doing their own bookkeeping!
Let’s face it for most of us it’s a chore doing your bookkeeping, we invariably leave it to the evenings or worse the weekends, to get it done, and it’s usually at the last minute. So why do we do it.
“It saves me money doing it myself” I hear you cry. Well let’s look at this in detail.
If you charge out your services at more than £25/ hour, then to do the bookkeeping yourself when you could employ a professional bookkeeper is a false economy to do it yourself.
How much time to you spend doing your bookkeeping in the evenings and weekends 3 or 4 hours or more maybe?. What could you be doing with your business in that time or better still what could you be doing with your family in that time!.
So why else would you want to use a professional bookkeeper? Well for a start keeping your business accounts up to date every month gives you as the business owner the ability to make proper informed financial decisions. So you need a cash flow projection for that bank managers meeting, or you may need to know who owes you money and who you owe money to so you can work out your ‘real’ bank balance.
Your bookkeeper will in effect become your Financial advisor being another set of eyes and ears in your business. A good Bookkeeper will always be available to give you impartial help and financial advice as part of their service. Remember it’s in the interest of the Bookkeeper to be interested in their clients business as they will be looking to work with you on a long term basis.
So remember, employing a good Bookkeeper in an Investment in your business not an expense.
Employing a bookkeeper will also give you piece of mind that things are being looked after. There are many business and financial deadlines which occur frequently like VAT, CIS, PAYE etc and it’s easy to forget when these are due when you are up to your neck in the muck and bullets running your business!. Having someone looking out for you can prove very valuable especially if the HMRC take an interest in your business.
So keeping your financial affairs up to date is really important especially at year end when you get your Accountant to do his year end work. If your accounts are up to date and properly done then there’s less work for your Accountant to do and that means a lower fee!.
Ok, so you like the idea of having a bookkeeper looking after you but where do you find a good Bookkeeper that you can trust and work with?
This is a very important question to consider, especially the trust element of it.
So here are some guidelines to finding a good Bookkeeper:
- Ask around your business community or networking group to see if anybody recommends a good bookkeeper. Don’t just pick one out of the yellow pages!.
- Check out their qualifications are they ICB qualified (institute of Certified Bookkeeping).
- Get them to show you their references and testimonials.
- Make sure they are insured especially if they are an outsourcing service
- Is their Accounts software safe and secure to use.
- Meet the Bookkeeper face to face and see if you get on with them, after all you may be working with them regularly over a long period time with your companies financial data.
- Finally, If they charge less than £18/£20 hour then they are probably not a professional Bookkeeper.
Just one more thing to consider. Outsourcing your Bookkeeping can be a prudent decision as this means no in house overhead costs like using your computer desk coffee electricity etc.
Outsourcing your Bookkeeping shows good business sense and will give your business every chance of becoming more profitable. Most importantly it will allow you to focus on your business and it’s core activities while feeling save in the knowledge that an expert is looking after your financial affairs.
I hope that this has been of some help to you and your business. If you would like to speak with us about your bookkeeping requirements, please contact us, we’d be happy to arrange a call or visit to discuss.