Looking for Bookkeeping Services?

Apr 262010

Many sole proprietors and emerging businesses don’t think much about keeping track of their financial information. Probably because they are extremely busy trying to find new clients and retain old ones. This author recognizes that bookkeeping is not the most valuable thing a company will ever do. But finding a good bookkeeping service can help your company make better financial decisions and will make tax season much more enjoyable.

Below is a list of potential places to find bookkeeper services.

Local College Students: If you have a college in your community, then try seeking out some of the accounting majors and ask them to keep track of your books on the cheap. This will provide them great experience and you a lot of good information at a low cost. Note: accounting students understand more than they need to about bookkeeping, but they may not understand how your company works so you will need to train them a little.

Craigslist: If you haven’t used craigslist at all, you are missing out on employer opportunities. You can usually place an ad there for free or for very little and find good candidates in your area very quickly. Simply find the craigslist for your area and then post an ad for experienced bookkeeping services. You will likely be surprised at how fast this works.

Online Bookkeeping Services: There are a few companies that will keep track of your company’s information online. The benefit of this is that you don’t have to find a local bookkeeper to do your accounting. Your company simply communicates with the outsourcing company online and they keep track of your financial information for you.

TADAccounting: One good example of an online bookkeeping service is TadAccounting. Basically the idea is that you sign up for a monthly package and they send you a shoebox envelope. Your company places all of its receipts and bills in this envelope and ships it back to them. Tad then processes all of your information and even categorizes it into the correct tax categories. Services start at around $150 a month, but the price depends on the size of your company and how much of your accounting you want to outsource.

Gina’s Bookkeeping: If you are just starting up your own business and you have no idea how to keep track of any of the tax and/or financial information, then Gina’s bookkeeping may be a good idea for you. Gina’s will be more expensive than a student because they will be training you instead of you training them. They provide you with business bookkeeping services that will help your company stay on track tax-wise. They don’t travel all over the country and they are located in Oregon. However, they will help get your accounting system set up by phone, email, and remote access.

Books2taxes: This is another great online option. This company has a myriad of different ways of working with your company; you work with them to decide what will work best. One way they operate is by having your company scan the documents and forward them to books2taxes. They then remote connect to your computer and update your books for you. They work with both QuickBooks and Peachtree.

Online Accounting Software: This is probably my favorite bookkeeper service. You simply have some form of online accounting software: QuickBooks has this option. You can process your own information using the software. Or if you don’t want to do it yourself, you can hire books2taxes, or another bookkeeping outsourcing option to update your books for you. You simply give them access to the online software, scan or send them your bills/receipts etc., and wait for them to update your books. You both have access whenever you want. This is the option I would recommend if I were outsourcing my bookkeeping.

Hopefully this is a pretty comprehensive list of bookkeeping services, if you wanted to add something please feel free to do so in the comment box below.

Bookkeeping Service Guide

Apr 242010

More and more people are recognizing that bookkeeping is about more than just tax. Keeping track of your books all year around can provide a company with critical information in order to make key business decisions. Not to mention, if your company wants a loan it is going to need its books in order. The follow article provides information on bookkeeping services.

Should You Outsource Your Bookkeeping?

The answer to this question depends on a lot of factors. If you currently don’t have anyone taking care of your books, then outsourcing may be an easy choice. However, if you have an internal accountant performing your accounting and bookkeeping services then you will want to consider this person’s well-being. If you outsource the accounting, the person will be out of a job.

However, business is business. Sometimes a company can save quite a bit of money by outsourcing because they now don’t have to pay the bookkeeper’s salary and other benefits. It is a tough decision that you’ll have to make as the business owner.

One advantage to outsourcing your bookkeeper services is that it will allow your company to focus on what it does best. This can free up a lot of time that is much needed in growing organizations.

One disadvantage of having an outsourced bookkeeper service is that you are no longer in complete control of all your company’s valuable financial information. If the outsourcing service is sloppy with your information then it could fall into the wrong hands.

Price of Bookkeeping Service

The price of keeping your books in order will vary dramatically depending on the size of your company. If you run a small business then you could probably pay an accounting student around $10 an hour for 10-20 hours a week to keep track of your financial information.

For a larger corporation you will likely need several full-time CPA’s to keep track of everything and make sure that information is being tracked so that it can be presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).

Other Tidbits

Another thing you will want to look for with a bookkeeping service is how much experience the bookkeeper has. It is not always necessary to hire someone with lots of experience (in fact in some cases it is a bad idea because you will have to pay them more and they will be doing work that they feel is below them). If you have already been running the bookkeeping at your company and just want to hand it off to someone then I would recommend looking for someone with little or no experience. You won’t have to pay them much and you can train them how to keep track of the books (it isn’t rocket science).

However, if you don’t know the first thing about bookkeeping and accounting then you will want to hire a bookkeeper with more experience. You’ll have to pay more, but a more experienced bookkeeper will help get a system in place that will be vital to your organization.

If your company is small or just starting then I would recommend going with some relatively inexpensive software. Quickbooks is a good option because it is well respected and any bookkeepers you hire will be able to figure out how to use it quickly (if they don’t know already).

In summary, finding a bookkeeping service is more important to an organization than was previously thought. Outsourcing can be a good option, but make sure to consider both the benefits and the costs; you might save money but destroy a friend’s life. If you already know how to keep track of accounting information, be careful about overpaying for someone with experience (you can easily train a student to do it for cheap). However, if you have no idea about accounting then hire someone who can set up a system for you.

Different Types of Accounting Services

Feb 272010

Are you looking for accounting services? Well the truth is you will probably need to be a little more specific in what you are searching for. Contrary to popular opinion, there are a lot of different types of services that accountants perform. Most people think that all accountants hold a pencil, wear a funny visor and use a huge calculator. This post will attempt to outline some of the accountant services that are available and give other useful information

Accounting Tax Services

If you know next to nothing about accounting, then you probably believe that the only service accountants offer is taxes. Some accountants do specialize in tax, but fewer than you might think. In other words, if you are looking for a tax accountant, make sure to ask the accountant if they do/specialize in taxes. It can be offensive to those of us who aren’t in taxes if you ask us to do your taxes at the end of the year!
Another item to focus on when you are looking for accounting services that deal with taxes is to ask the accountant if he/she specializes in individual taxes or corporate taxes or both. Some accountants may be experts in individual taxes, and they may not have the foggiest idea about corporate taxes and vice versa. Make sure you know what you need, when hiring/looking for tax accounting services.

Accounting Audit Services

Contrary to popular belief, accountants do something besides tax. In fact, brace yourself; the auditing field of accounting is probably larger than the tax field. Accounting services in this field consist of making sure that the financial information that a public company releases is in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Note that private companies often want their financial information audited as well.
Why would anyone want to be audited?

For public companies (companies that trade stock publicly) this is a required accounting service. These companies release financial statements and believe it or not, they are not always honest. A lot of people use these statements to decide which stock to buy and sell. In fact, people who don’t use and understand these statements are at a huge disadvantage. If the company is not honest, then a lot of people’s livelihoods suffer. Hence the need for auditing accounting services. The auditor/accountant comes in and does his/her best to ensure that the financial statements are for the most part accurate.

Are you a private company looking for this type of accounting service? A lot of private companies need auditing services as well. Banks will often require the private company’s financial information to be audited before they feel good about lending money. In addition, potential purchasers of a company will often want the financials to be audited.

Accounting Bookkeeping Services

A lot of people who are searching for “accounting services” are often looking for someone to take care of their “books.” This type of service usually consists of the accountant keeping track of purchases, sales, investments, cash, etc. These services can be performed with a pencil and paper or they can be performed with accounting software (more common nowadays). Not trying to slight bookkeepers, but it doesn’t require a lot of effort to do this type of work because the software keeps track of everything for you. If you are looking to hire an accountant for this type of service, don’t offer to pay too much and consider doing it yourself if you are really on a tight budget.
Managerial Accounting Services

This type of service provides a lot of value, but it is often overlooked. Management accountants work within the company trying to track important information that will help upper-management make key decisions on how to run the company. After years of staring at financial information, it turns out that accountants are pretty good at dissecting the information and making good decisions for the company. This type of accountant can often offer consulting services that may spice up your business.

Internal Auditors

These accountants offer a lot of different types of services for the company. Their roles may include bookkeeping, decision-making, taxes, and more. However one of their main roles is to work with the auditors that come in to make sure that your company’s financial information is correct. They try to keep the company honest all year and they work with the Board of Directors and the external auditors to ensure that the financials are presented fairly.

I’m sure that there are more accounting services out there, but that should get you a pretty good idea of what to look for when searching for accountants. Remember that not all accountants perform the same services and not all accountants are alike.

© 2011 ClockWork Accounting Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha