Hiring a bookkeeper can make or break your business. A good bookkeeper can make a positive impact on your business’ finances. Meanwhile, the opposite can be said when you fail to hire a good one. Bookkeepers handle various tasks and give you the freedom to focus on running and growing your business, which is why it is important to find the right bookkeeper.

If we talk about experiences and expertise, then there are many types of bookkeepers. Some bookkeepers have formal certification, while others do not. There are also some that have accumulated college accounting units, while some do not. In order to find a qualified and fitting bookkeeper for your company, here are some tips to help you with your selection.

Understand Your Needs

Finding a good bookkeeper begins by understand your needs and only by understanding your needs will help you identify the suitable person for the role. Here are a few things you need to consider:

• Your Business – Every business is unique and has different requirements for bookkeeping. A restaurant, a retail store and a home service business has different bookkeeping needs.
• The Transactions – What are the transactions you make and how many do you make each day, week, month or year. Knowing your transactions will help in determining the amount of bookkeeping time you need.
• Key Dates – Key dates for a business are payroll days, tax deadlines and bill due dates. Identify your key dates and make sure the bookkeeper can provide accurate and latest reports before these dates arrive.

Depth of Bookkeeping Experience

Industry experience is a huge plus when hiring bookkeepers and they may have different experiences in handling corporate finances. They can be good at one thing and suck at the other. Others may have gained experience on every facet of bookkeeping.  Ask your prospects about how experienced they are in bookkeeping, how long have they’ve been in this field and what businesses have they worked with.

Each industry has different bookkeeping practice. A bookkeeper may have experience working with restaurants or retailers but may not have the knowledge or experience when working for a pest control company or plumbing company. The relevance of one’s experience is more important than how experienced one is.

Bookkeeper’s Personality

When hiring a bookkeeper, it is important to mind their personalities. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Are you comfortable working with this person or not?
• Are you comfortable with the way this person communicates?
• Is he or she good at providing explanations and can you understand them?
• Can you trust them with your business’ books?

You need to have these questions answered before you make any decision.

Bookkeeper’s Trustworthiness and Reputation

Trust is important when looking for a bookkeeper and it is even more important to build a relationship that is built on trust.  The professional bookkeeper you are looking to hire must provide correct and truthful information about himself and his bookkeeping experience.  Also, it helps if he has built a positive reputation for himself. When looking to hire a bookkeeper, it would be better to check his background and work history.

A good bookkeeper will keep books clean, even if he has plans to move to another company.  He will never run away and leave books in shambles.

Competencies and skills

Yes, competencies and skills can be taught but businessmen don’t have the time to teach and certainly they expect their bookkeepers to be competent and skilled enough. When you hire a bookkeeper, he or she should have the skills and knowledge to complete essential bookkeeping tasks like:

• Reconciling books
• Processing accounts payable, receivable and payroll
• Processing journal entries
• Creating a budget and forecast
• Financial reports
• Tax
• Inventory

Soft skills are also needed like:

• Organizational skills
• Problem solving skills
• People skills
• Business acumen
• Adaptability
• Teamwork
• Observation skills
• Communication skills

Up-to-date Computer and Technical Knowledge

The days of tiresome manual bookkeeping are gone. Now there are various software and tools that bookkeepers can use for their tasks, which simplify the process and greatly reduce the amount of time for completion.  There are also cloud-based apps that help professional bookkeeper easily keep and update accounts. It will also enable you to identify any problems quickly. Thus, it is important that the bookkeeper has technical knowledge and knows how to use bookkeeping software and apps.

Most of all, they should be computer literate. It is the most basic skill a modern professional bookkeeper should have. Most bookkeeping practices today involved the use of email, internet, Word and Excel programs.

The Qualifications

When looking for bookkeepers for hire, the most important requirement to consider is not the bookkeeping experience, skills or personality. If you’re considering bookkeepers for hire, the most important thing to consider would be the bookkeeper’s qualifications. A qualified professional bookkeeper will provide assurance and security that your books and finances will be managed properly.
Today, bookkeepers are given their accreditation not only because they have enough training but also because they are competent.  If one is unqualified, he might not be able to do the job well and you might end up double checking or redoing his work. Furthermore, unqualified bookkeepers may do your business more harm than good. It is always important to check if the applicant has diploma or degree in accounting or similar financial service. If not, then ask what qualifications they have.

It is indeed easy to find a bookkeeper, but it is important to find the right one. Having the right bookkeeper will free you from the stress of handling your books. Most of all, a good bookkeeper will help your business become more profitable and achieve accurate and healthy finances.

Bookkeeping is a very essential task to businesses. Without it, the business would easily crash and fail. It is possible to do bookkeeping on your own, but many businesses prefer hiring a bookkeeper or bookkeeping services, which will save time as well as the risks involved in making a mistake.

What is Bookkeeping?

Bookkeeping is the act of recording the business’ financial transactions. It includes all the purchases, earnings, sales, payments and receipts, which are recorded meticulously so that every dollar that goes in and out, are all accounted for.

What is a Bookkeeper

Bookkeepers are accounting professionals who are tasked to organize and track cash flow, checks, receipts and take note of every purchase made. They chronologically record data into specified books or software. This leads to a careful record-keeping necessary to the business’ success.

Outsourced Bookkeeping Services is More Beneficial

Hiring outsourced bookkeeping services has more benefits than hiring an in-house bookkeeper. Here are the benefits of hiring outsourced bookkeeping:

Impartial Opinion

Hiring an external bookkeeping help will give you an impartial opinion. An in-house bookkeeper is emotionally attached to the business and might consider his best interest at hand. On the other hand, an outsourced service is all about doing business and would provide crucial insight about your business’ finances. This insight might be positive or negative – either way, it will help you.

Get More Valuable Time

Getting external bookkeeping for small business will allow you to get more valuable time, which can be used to grow your business. You will be able to spend more time on meeting new clients, improve your service or plan your expansion, instead of maintaining your books. Furthermore, outsourced bookkeeping will take away the distractions of bookkeeping and allow you to focus your mind only on running your business.

Save More Money

An in-house bookkeeper would cost you a lot of money. You will need to pay wages, taxes, vacation leaves and several other benefits but all of these expenses can be avoided by hiring bookkeeping services. Bookkeeping services cost less and would require you to pay only a fraction of what a full time staff would cost you.

More Secure

Many businesses suffer when their internal bookkeepers suddenly decide to leave and search for new pastures. Whether it is due to better opportunities or a new environment, the sudden absence of a bookkeeper can cause a huge financial turmoil to your business.  All of a sudden, no one’s handling your bookkeeping needs. If you hire outsourced bookkeeping services, you will be given security and assurance. It is rare for bookkeeping services to drop their clients. In fact, they are more interested in building long term relationships.

Work with an Expert

Bookkeeping services provides you a great way to access knowledgeable and trained experts without paying them around the clock. You’d be able to find a suitable bookkeeping expert according to your industry, the size of your business and your needs. Having a knowledgeable and well-trained expert for your bookkeeping needs will make things a lot easier and more effective.

Team Effort

With an outsourced bookkeeping, your books are in the hands of an entire team. You have a team that would double check each other’s work to ensure 100% quality service and that no mistakes would haunt you.

Make the Right Decisions

Bookkeeping help you make the right decisions. You can identify great opportunities to increase your income and decrease spending. Bookkeeping services can provide you all the data you need when   you need to make a huge decision. You will know how much money your business is bringing or losing each month. They can put together a list of recurring costs and where your money is going.  Most of all, outsourced bookkeepers would help you understand data and make you look at every available option.

Protect Your Business

Hiring bookkeeping services is like hiring another layer of security that will protect your business. Outsourced bookkeepers would always have your best interest at heart and help you detect fraud, embezzlement and other financial traps. They will point out suspicious transactions and can provide appropriate records as evidence if needed.

Scalable

Lastly, outsourced bookkeeping services will allow you to expand or cut down anytime you want. If you want to expand your business or cut down your expenses, you have a reliable team of experts that can help you when you call. They can provide you with several plans that will help you achieve what you want.