If you’ve hired a bookkeeper, you probably know what we do: keep your books, manage your financial reporting, cut checks, provide documents and reporting for taxes. But what you may not be aware of is all the ways your bookkeeper can help your business. In this article, we will take you through 5 ways that bookkeepers can help your business run better, saving you time and money…and setting your business up for explosive growth.
How Bookkeepers Can Improve Your Business Systems
People are often surprised to hear how much bookkeepers work to maximize their efficiency and potential as a business. In addition to keeping clean books, bookkeepers can evaluate your routines and systems and identify ways to improve them.
Bookkeepers can:
- Use expertise in the field to see how systems can be updated or upgraded to better serve your needs (Can you say QuickBooks?!)
- Find more efficient ways to manage financial reporting, streamline the processes.
- Ascertain ways to make your existing accounting modules (i.e., invoicing, inventory, point of sale) work together to provide you with a better picture of your business.
- Set up accounting software so it’s customized to your business and its needs.
How Bookkeepers Can Save you Time
Business owners who learn accounting on the fly often end up with a lot of workarounds. And workarounds often result in errors that cost you money. Bookkeepers will:
- Streamline your information capture: one bank statement can represent 10 pages of bank activity, and we are trained to process it quickly and efficiently.
- Share our knowledge and resources, with QuickBooks video tutorials, onsite staff training, etc.
- Show you ways to replace slower, outdated systems with more efficient systems: for example, we saved one client 2 ½ hours per week by showing them how to use QuickBooks to develop AP reports (they were using a spreadsheet previously.)
How Bookkeepers Can Save you Money
Business owners often put off hiring outside help like bookkeepers because they think it will take too much time to train them. But we get up to speed in your business quickly, and we look for the ways to benefit your bottom line through better systems.
Bookkeepers will:
- Use our expertise to improve your systems to reduce costs , fees, etc. Recently, we were able to save one client $1200 per month in bank and credit card fees! Could your business benefit from a cash infusion of $14,000 in one year?
- Stay current with the ever-changing GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) to help you avoid problems or solve small problems before they become big problems. For example, if a regulation changes mid-year, we can update your books accordingly. Otherwise, you may be halfway into tax prep by the time you find out, and you’d have to ask your CPA adjust all the entries, which can add significant costs to your tax prep.
How Bookkeepers Can Save you Trouble
Stephanie Robl, owner of Ten Key, Inc., says, “Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of a bookkeeper’s value to a business is the advice and consulting we can provide. We know your business as well as you do, so we can alert you to weaknesses in your business so you stop losing money, as well as growth opportunities to help you make more money.” Bookkeepers can:
- Assist with audits. We are accustomed to handling financial records, and can help gather what you need for tax audits. However, tax audits aren’t the only kind of audit you may need to undergo. We recently helped a client gather information and submit forms for a worker’s compensation premium audit. The client told us, “Ten Key saved me time and money (because I have no doubt that having accurate information helped ensure that my insurance premium only increased minimally). But in addition, I had the peace of mind of knowing that the audit process proceeded thoroughly and correctly.”
- Help with planning and budgeting. Cash flow is the lifeblood of your business. Through a cash flow analysis, we can help you determine better ways to handle your cash flow. This includes how to improve cash flow in tough times, and how to handle it better in good times.
- Point clients in the right direction for good lending. Securing and maintaining good lending can be essential for a growing business. We can help you pull together the right info, fill out applications, generate reports for loan packages, help you figure out how much to apply for, integrate loan payments into your schedule, guide you to the right lending options so you don’t put your personal assets at risk.
How Bookkeepers Can Grow your Business
When it’s time for you to grow your business, bookkeepers can be an essential part of the financial team that helps you make it happen. Bookkeepers can:
- Use our connections in the financial, legal, and insurance industries to provide you with resources for your next steps in growth (Remember the financial team series? Bookkeepers have access to a ton of resources!)
- Look at long term implications of growth: for example, how growth will impact your tax situation and how we can mitigate those effects.
- Develop and monitor cash flow and budgets to ensure you are managing your income effectively as you grow, so your business becomes more profitable.
Conclusion
So, how can we, as bookkeepers, help you and your business? The key is for us to assess your situation. We have access to solutions and experience with all sorts of businesses, and we can bring our expertise to your business. It won’t happen overnight, but we’ll take the steps to get you going in the right direction. If this article is making you think, “Wow, I didn’t realize bookkeepers did all this!” then we encourage you to contact us for a consult to see how else we can be helping you and your business. Go ahead–try us. We’re ready to help you grow!