Handling financial tasks like accounting and payroll can overwhelm small business owners, especially as the business grows. Hiring a bookkeeper to take responsibility for your finances is more efficient, freeing you to focus on the day-to-day operations of growing the business.

How Can a Bookkeeper Help Your Small Business?

An experienced bookkeeper can help with everything from tracking expenses and income, preparing financials for your accountant to file tax returns, coordinating payroll, reconciling bank statements, and much more. By delegating these tasks to a professional bookkeeper, you can focus on running other aspects of your business while maintaining accurate financial records.

Do You Need a Bookkeeper or An Accountant?

While bookkeeping and accounting have tasks that overlap, you will need both to manage your business finances. 

Accounting starts where bookkeeping ends. Bookkeepers track business expenses, income, and transactions and reconcile financial accounts. Accountants can take the information recorded by your bookkeeper and interpret it. Working together, they provide a true picture of what it costs to run your business and what income you need to generate to turn a profit. 

Another way they can work together is through tax preparation. The bookkeeper gathers all your financial reports for your accountant. Bookkeeper hourly fees are generally less expensive, so it makes sense for them to do the heavy lifting on the day-to-day numbers. Your accountant can use this baseline information to find the tax advantages you can use to lower the overall tax burden of the business. Engaging your finance team to work together is the best way to use each person’s skills to the maximum benefit of your small business. 

What Skills Should You Look For In A Bookkeeper?

When looking for a bookkeeper to hire, you should find someone with a good understanding of business finances and accounting principles. They should also have experience dealing with taxes, employee payroll, and other financial regulations. It is important that your bookkeeper is well organized, pays close attention to detail, and has excellent communication skills so they can easily convey their findings to you clearly.

Getting a referral from someone in your field is always a good plan. While bookkeeping tasks can be applied to most businesses, hiring someone with experience in your industry is always better. Onboarding a new vendor or employee is always extra work in the beginning, so take the shortcut where you can and hire someone who can hit the ground running.

What to Look for in a Small Business Bookkeeper Contract

Before hiring a bookkeeper, you should ensure you have a strong and legally binding contract in place. This document should clearly define the duties and responsibilities of the bookkeeper and set out expectations of when they will be completing these tasks. It should also include details on key financial figures such as expected working hours and paying expenses. It should spell out communication protocols like, “We will always communicate about your business via email to ensure a complete paper trail.” Lastly, ensure the contract sets out information on who owns business financial records and what happens if they are ever lost or stolen.

Do You Have More Questions About Small Business Bookkeeping?

Are you looking for a bookkeeper for your small business? Would you like to chat with me about what you’re hoping to accomplish so you can learn what’s possible? Schedule a complimentary 30-minute consultation; I’m here to help.