When you think of a bookkeeper you might be imaging someone sitting at a desk in a dark corner, scribbling out line after line of numbers in a dusty old ledger. Maybe they have an abacus sitting on their desk and are wearing a sweater vest. That might have been the case at one point in time, but now a bookkeeper does more than just keep your books. With finance upkeep becoming digitized, they manage a more streamlined process of tracking your finances and taking on even more tasks depending on the needs of your business. Let’s talk about some of the major services a bookkeeper might provide.
Handle Accounts Payable
Keeping track off all the money that is leaving your business is obviously an important task. If you have a growing stack of invoices from various suppliers or vendors on your desk, a bookkeeper would be able to handle that for you. You won’t need to worry about making sure bills are paid on time, because your bookkeeper will keep track of any due dates, early payment discounts, and make sure those bills are taken care of.
Handle Accounts Receivable
What is your business income looking like? Are clients paying their invoices on time? Your bookkeeper would be able to answer those questions for you. Keeping track of accounts receivable is a vital asset to keeping your business running. A bookkeeper would not only take note of all of the income that is due to the company, but they will also reach out to clients who are past due on their payments and take care of collections if needed.
Payroll Processing
Whether it is through direct deposit, physical cash, a check, or some other form of payment, a bookkeeper can take care of making sure your employees are paid the correct amount on time. Processing payroll can be a time consuming task, especially if you have more than a few employees, need to take other factors like overtime into consideration, and are making sure your tax information is up-to-date.
Tax Preparation
Speaking of making sure your tax information up-to-date, a bookkeeper can also handle your business tax preparation. Every year small business owners face the burden of getting their taxes done, but having a bookkeeper can lift that weight off your shoulders. Not every bookkeeper will take care of every bit of tax preparation like All About Businesses, but most will at least act as a guide between you and an accountant, including providing tax statements.
Bank Reconciliations
The amount in your balance sheet should match the amount in your bank account, and if that isn’t the case, you might have a problem on your hands. Thankfully, bookkeepers tend to perform bank reconciliations on a monthly basis to make sure your cash flow is looking normal and everything is recorded properly.
Preparing Financial Statements
There are a few different financial statements your bookkeeper will be responsible for providing, but the major ones are:
- Balance sheet – a summary of your business’ finances that reports your assets, liabilities, and equity
- Cash flow statement – a record of incoming and outgoing expenses
- Profit and loss statement – a summary of your business revenue compared to the cost of keeping your business operating
Clean Up Any Existing Books
This is something that most business owners need to take care of eventually. Most start off tracking finances on their own, but eventually come across a problem that requires a bookkeeper to resolve. Maybe they messed up on some numbers. Maybe the company has grown, and they forgot to keep track of the increasing expenses. Whatever the reason, any bookkeeper should be able to clean up your existing books.
Is a Bookkeeper Worth It?
Obviously we think yes, but we hope this short list of services has convinced you of the value of hiring a bookkeeper. Bookkeepers are capable of doing so much more than what we listed here, and if you’re wondering about what that includes you can visit our service page or contact us directly.
