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Written by: Veronica Wasek | VM Wasek
As an entrepreneurial CPA and owner of a modern accounting company and business finance blogger , you would think that I love working on my bookkeeping. Actually, no I don’t! I discovered early in my business journey that my time is best spent growing my company and taking care of clients and not working on my own bookkeeping. I made the decision a few years ago to delegate my company’s internal bookkeeping to one of my own very qualified employees. All I do now is make remote deposits, review payroll, and approve vendor bills electronically. I freed up at least 8 hours a week!I’m going to share with you 5 reasons to outsource all of your bookkeeping in 2018.
A FAMILIAR STORY
Does this sound familiar? You, your spouse or relative, or your support staff spent hours a week working on your company’s bookkeeping. You don’t know if you’re doing right, you feel out of control, and you don’t have the patience to work on it. Worst yet, you don’t work on your bookkeeping – nobody does! It’s been months since you did any bookkeeping other than prepare invoices and pay vendors. Yikes! This is an all too familiar story.
Why do you hesitate to delegate your bookkeeping? It’s because you think you should be able to master it because you’re smart and educated, or you think you can’t afford it. You may be driving your company into the ground if you don’t free up your time and trust a qualified professional to take care of your company’s bookkeeping processes.
BUSINESS PROCESS OUTSOURCING
Have you heard of business process outsourcing? Business process outsourcing (BPO) is becoming the norm. Basically, you subcontract business-related tasks to a third-party service provider. It's important to note that when I refer to "outsourcing" I don't mean offshoring. You can outsource tasks to a qualified accounting or bookkeeping firm locally or within your own country.
In the past, a company had to hire a whole bunch of employees to create an “accounting department”. With technology and the cloud, you can outsource the entire accounting function to a qualified team of professionals.
REASON #1 – FREE UP YOUR TIME SO YOU CAN GROW YOUR COMPANY
Remember when you decided to start your business? You had a great business idea and you thought you would change the world. You envisioned yourself as a successful entrepreneur making a difference in the lives of your customers. Did you think about the long hours you would spend setting up your QuickBooks, trying to figure out what a chart of accounts is, running payroll, paying the bills, or reconciling accounts? Of course not! I bet you were in for a surprise when you realized how much administrative work you would have to do as a new entrepreneur.
The # 1 reason to outsource all of your bookkeeping processes is to free up your time and free yourself from mental clutter so you can focus on growing your business.
Why spend your time on a task that generates no revenue for you when you can devote those hours to growing and scaling your business?
REASON #2 – GAIN CONFIDENCE AND PEACE OF MIND
Most of the business owners I talk to tell me that they are worried that they’re not doing their bookkeeping correctly or worried that they may get in trouble with the IRS. The average business owner spends hours worrying about their bookkeeping – either because they’ve made a mess or because they’re not working on it. When you outsource all of your bookkeeping processes to a qualified accounting professional, you can be confident that your bookkeeping is being handled timely and accurately.
It’s amazing how much more you can accomplish when you rid yourself of worry and mental clutter that worry brings.
REASON #3 – MODERNIZE AND INTEGRATE YOUR COMPANY’S OPERATIONS
Whether you want to admit or not, your entire company’s operations revolve around the accounting and financial aspects of your business. With QuickBooks and integrated software applications (apps), you can implement solutions for your entire company’s operations, including:
For my own company, I have integrated my website contact form to my CRM system. I have integrated my CRM system with QuickBooks Online and with my email marketing service. I have integrated QuickBooks Online with project management, time tracking system, electronic accounts payable, paperless receipt management, and electronic expense reports apps. I take a picture of my receipts using an app that integrates with QuickBooks Online and saves an image of my receipt in QBO.
And did I mention that all solutions are cloud-based? I love it!
REASON #4 – PROTECT YOUR COMPANY
The average business owner delegates way too much responsibility to inexperienced support staff. That includes sharing banking credentials, giving administrative access to QuickBooks, processing the payroll, signing checks, and handling the company’s purchases. You might as well hand over your wallet to that person!
By outsourcing all of your company’s bookkeeping processes, you retain full control while qualified professional work securely with your data.
A professional and reputable accounting firm should never ask for any sensitive information such as your banking credentials and they should never sign any checks with you. With QuickBooks and integrated solutions, you are in control and you still make all key financial decisions – such as when a payment will be released to a vendor. Just imagine, with a tool such as Bill.com, your vendors email their invoices directly to your e-mail box at Bill.com. Your bookkeeper assigns the correct accounting category to the transaction and sets up the vendor bill for approval. You receive an email notifying you that you have bills to approve. You view electronic images of your bills and approve each one for payment. Bill.com sends a check to your vendor after you approve and release the payment. Wasn’t that easy? No paper and no checks. Nice!
REASON #5 – GET THE POWER OF FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE REPORTS AND DASHBOARDS
When you outsource all of your company’s bookkeeping processes, you can now get meaningful and timely reports. Did you know that you can go a step further? Now that you have clean data in your QuickBooks, you can integrate it with a financial intelligence app to get dashboards, key managements reports, and insights to help you manage your business. Really? Yes you can.
I bet you thought that the only reason for maintaining your bookkeeping is so you can file your taxes.
Actually, the true reason for having clean, timely, and meaningful financial data is to get the reports and insights you need to manage and grow your business. That is the most important reason and well worth the investment.
ARE YOU A GOOD CANDIDATE FOR FULLY OUTSOURCED BOOKKEEPING SERVICES?
A service-based company is an excellent candidate for fully outsourcing their bookkeeping processes. That includes professional services, creative agencies, technology firms, marketing firms, and consultancies.
WHAT IF YOU’RE NOT READY TO OUTSOURCE EVERYTHING YET?
No worries. If you work with a professional accounting firm, they will help you to identify which bookkeeping processes you can easily outsource. They will work with you to customize a package that fits your needs.
RECAP
By outsourcing all of your bookkeeping processes you will free up time, gain peace of mind, streamline your operations, protect your company, and gain powerful financial insights to take your company to the next level.
Are you a small business owner? What's holding you back from outsourcing your bookkeeping?