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Bookkeeping is Fun…Right?
By justBurbank.com | March,2008
For most businesspeople, bookkeeping is a pain to keep up. This is something many would like to hand over. But is it prudent; what should you keep and can you afford to delegate it? How valuable is your time?
Evaluate the time you spend on paying bills, data entry, bank reconciliations, filing receipts, collections and tax preparation. Then find out how much it would cost to hire a professional. Does it make sense for you to spend time figuring out the latest tax report requirements when an accountant can do it in one-tenth the time?
If you are just starting your business, you can probably do your own bookkeeping for a while to save money. Once you have mastered Excel or QuickBooks, it is not that difficult to make a few entries each week.
- If you are new to QuickBooks, spend the extra time and money it takes to hire a full-charge bookkeeper to teach you how to use the software. It will be money well spent. The same bookkeeper will probably be happy to look over your entries periodically or at the end of the year to ensure you have done everything correctly.
- Set up an online bank account with a major bank and use their online bill-paying system. Yes…it is secure, perhaps more secure than mail through the post office system. It costs about the same as you are spending on postage mailing your bills and is a lot more convenient.
- Once a month you can download your statements, reconcile your account and enter your transactions into QuickBooks.
- At the end of the year you’ll have all the information online needed to prepare your tax return, deposits, receipts and statements.
If you have been in business for a while, you may be ready to outsource some of the work to a bookkeeper, CPA and hopefully even an investment manager to take care of that extra cash flow that’s spilling over.
However, always manage your money. As the owner, you must always be aware of your income and expenses, where you need to cut back and what your profit centers are. If you do outsource your bookkeeping, get regular reports and read them carefully. Good financial reports will tell you exactly how to plan your growth.
The team at www.justBurbank.com collaborates on our articles. Each employee, contributes, then Kate edits for business-appropriateness, and Libby edits to make sure the article is funny and juicy. Our aim is to write helpful & entertaining articles.
