It’s not uncommon for business owners to be hesitant about hiring a dedicated or third-party bookkeeper to help with tracking their expenses. Many times, business owners feel as though hiring a bookkeeper is an unnecessary expense. In other cases, a business owner may feel some discomfort about the thought of giving a third-party individual access to his or her private information. Although such concerns are certainly legitimate, it should also be recognized that there are many benefits to hiring a dedicated or even third-party individual to take over bookkeeping responsibilities. In fact, those benefits can actually outweigh possible disadvantages.
Among the most important benefits of hiring a bookkeeper is the fact that it actually costs money to handle your books on your own. The time spent on handling bookkeeping tasks is time that could be spent on other, more important areas of your business. If you are not familiar with bookkeeping, the time it takes to handle entering transactions can be much more consuming than it needs to be. Not only should you think about the cost of such time in terms of dollars, but it also important to think about how much money your business could earn if you were not spending so much time keeping your own books.
Along with an opportunity cost, the importance of accuracy as a benefit to hiring a bookkeeper should also be considered. By hiring a professional bookkeeping service, you can rest assured that your books are being handled by someone with specific accounting experience. Even a single, small error in your bookkeeping has the potential to wreak havoc on your business and could even subject you to legal repercussions. This is a risk that is simply not worth taking and makes hiring a professional bookkeeper well worth the investment.
When handling your books on your own, not only might there be more chance for error, but you may also have a tendency to procrastinate. When things get busy with your business, it can be easy to put off handling your bookkeeping. A professional hired for the sole purpose of handling your books will perform a better job and ensure everything is handled in a timely manner, thus helping to put your mind at ease.
Hiring a professional bookkeeper will also help to eliminate any potential conflict of interest, which can be important if you are in a business arrangement or partnership where this might be a concern. The best business relationships can quickly sour if there is any hint of misconduct or impropriety in relation to bookkeeping. Even if the error is unintentional, it can still cause serious damage to business relationships. You will be able to handle your business relationships much more easily if you are able to eliminate any potential conflict of interest by allowing a third-party to handle your business’s bookkeeping.
Outsourcing your bookkeeping services to a dedicated third party can also present many advantages. If you only need a bookkeeper to handle your books for a few hours a week, outsourcing to a third party can help you to save both time and money. Not only are you able to spend more time on your business, but you can also save the cost of a salary and benefits paid to an in-house bookkeeper by outsourcing to a professional third party.
Steve trained as a CPA and has over 30 years of accounting, financial and operational management experience. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, Magna Cum Laude, with a BBA in Accounting. He founded Mindful Business Solutions, Inc. to help businesses with their finances.