Benefits of Hiring an Bookkeeper in a Small Business
They perceive it as an unnecessary requirement.
If you have a qualified bookkeeper, you will note that the return on investment is very good.
Their decisions that you would have made or not made if you were armed with quality financial information.
So why should a small business hire a bookkeeper? 1.
Specialised knowledge - accounting and bookkeeping requires specialised knowledge and skills to be able to reduce all the business activities into a set of meaningful numbers.
Only qualified accountants can do this.
Entrepreneurs or small business owners are really operations oriented people and usually they do not possess these skills.
2.
Financial analysis for decision making - just numbers do not make sense if they are not analysed and related to the business activities.
This is the area of expertise of accountants.
Small business owners should use the information for decision making than being involved in the hassles of preparing the information.
3.
Up to date records - normally if you are running operations it is difficult to also be able to prepare proper books of accounts.
With a dedicated bookkeeper you are rest assured that someone is taking care of backoffice work.
4.
Bookkeepers add value - in a small business setting, business tasks are clustered on a few people.
A bookkeeper will run the debtors book, ensure creditors are paid and managed, filing tax and regulatory returns.
5.
Product profitability analysis - a small business can utilise a bookkeeper to analyse product performance.
This will help the business owner to drop poor performing products (or find ways to increase sales on those products) and increase focus on profitable product lines.
6.
Independent opinion on business - normally where you in it you are biased.
Sales people will be biased in their view of products, but a bookkeeper acts as an unbiased independent reference point in judging business performance.
Bookkeeper normally tell it like it is.
So here we are, it is apparent that a small business needs a bookkeeper.
However, it then depends on whether you need a full time or part time person.
This is dictated by the ability of the business to generate enough revenues to cover operating expenses and retain a profit.
One way will be hire an public accountant who comes at regular intervals to prepare and review the books of accounts for the business.