Why You Should Outsource Your Bookkeeping
The time you are spending attempting to crunch numbers could be spent on growing your business. According to a study done by the American Psychological Association, “brief mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40% of someone’s productive time.”
Your business is booming and along with the excitement of your hard work finally paying off, comes the stress of growing financial responsibilities. If you are spending more time working as the CFO than the CEO, it is time to outsource your bookkeeping. Hiring someone to handle your financial accounts will become inevitable as the business continues to grow. As soon as your bookkeeping is outsourced, you will have peace of mind that your accounting is done properly and professionally.
Save Yourself Time
The time you are spending attempting to crunch numbers could be spent on growing your business. According to a study done by the American Psychological Association, “brief mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40% of someone’s productive time.” If you are constantly switching between tasks, your productivity may be suffering. Outsourcing some of those tasks can let you focus deeply on the ones that only you can do.
If time is money, spend it where you can make it grow and don’t focus on what is leaving. Putting all of your time into developing your thriving business will make you more money in the long run.
Outsourcing Time Leads to Increases in Happiness
Another study conducted by the PNAS showed that buying time promotes happiness. The researchers gave people $40 for two weeks. The participants had to spend the $40 on a material item the first week and then $40 the following week on something that would save them time.
The experiment revealed increased happiness in the second week when the participants outsourced tasks like housekeeping. This study showed us that buying material things did not provide as much happiness as buying time. The research also showed that overall, Americans’ happiness goes up about 0.77 on a 10-point scale when they use their money to outsource tasks.
As a CEO, your mental health and happiness are important. When you’re stressed and unhappy, the quality of your decision-making deteriorates. Improving your mental health by using your money to buy back your time can be an excellent business decision.
Save Some Money
Everything related to business has a deadline, especially when it involves money. When you are late the penalty is usually having to spend more money on late fees and interest charges. Reconciling bank statements should happen monthly to avoid missing deadlines. Doing this will ensure all tasks related to bookkeeping get completed on time and correctly.
Some commonly overlooked issues are checks getting lost in the mail, deposits that were input correctly, and embezzlements that were not caught in the early stages. Reconciling bank statements can catch colossal issues such as embezzlements before they destroy your company.
Unless you want the responsibility of managing every single transaction, hire someone to take care of that for you. Your bookkeeper will make sure you are getting paid in full and on time by your consumers. You and your team have worked hard on generating all of your new business. If you are not getting paid, that hard work is wasted. Let someone else handle accounts receivable and focus on what matters most, being the CEO.
According to CB Insights, 29% of startup businesses reported one of their reasons for failure was due to financial hardships. That means that almost one-third of failed startups struggled from a lack of cash. You want your business to blossom and hiring a bookkeeper helps you eliminate the risk of failure from running out of money.
Free Consultation
If you are still not convinced hiring a bookkeeper will be worth the investment, try a free consultation. Most bookkeeping and accounting services offer a consultation at no charge to you. What do you have to lose? If you decide you would rather do it on your own, then at least you know you are making an informed decision.
Fewer Financial Errors
Instead of employees’ paychecks or checks from consumers falling on one person’s shoulders, hire some help. Having more help means tasks get done faster and are completed when they need to be. A bookkeeper assures there will be money in the bank for all of your business’s necessary expenses. They will also offer a fresh perspective on ways to make your business flourish financially. You may never have noticed these solutions if you didn’t seek help from a professional.
The bookkeeper can also act as the gatekeeper to money being spent. You may find it crucial to have a third party involved in big financial decisions as many people are involved in making them. This will protect all of the hard work everyone has put into making the company thrive. Humans will always make mistakes.
Why risk stress from errors you created handling something that should be done by a professional. Having extra sets of eyes on your accounting can catch a mistake before it progresses into a nightmare. No one wants to have to explain to investors where the missing money went. Hiring a professional can help you avoid these awkward conversations with your lender.
Bookkeepers Provide High-Quality Expertise
Becoming a certified bookkeeper is a rigorous process that includes tests, ongoing mandatory education, and fees. Unless you plan on becoming a certified bookkeeper yourself, let this work get done by a certified professional. If bookkeeping were that easy, it wouldn’t require the tests in the first place.
Having someone you trust with your finances is imperative to your company’s success. Hiring a bookkeeping company takes items like these off of your to-do list-
- Bookkeeping and accounting setup
- Support using your software or ERP system
- Cash flow management for income statements, balance sheets, profit/loss
- Internal audit of existing accounting policies and procedures
- Financial and operational reporting
- Annual budgeting and monthly reviews
- Sales and sales tax
- Tax filing and compliance
- Payroll
- Protecting company records
Sales Tax
Unless you know all about tax code and tax avoidance strategies, let someone who does handle your taxes. If your business offers taxable goods, this amount must be recorded separately to avoid an incorrect filing of your sales tax return. When filing you need to accurately categorize the spending for your business. Some items are fully deductible and some are only partial.
The IRS pays special attention to particular categories that have unusually high deductions or that are often taken advantage of. If you are not getting the most out of your deductions, you could be losing money. Someone who is already familiar with these systems and knows what you can and cannot deduct will ensure the taxes get done properly.
Hire A Bookkeeper
Regain the time spent fussing over finances. Hire a bookkeeper and get back to the work that is most important to you and the prosperity of your business.