Bookkeeping at its core is the recording of a business’s financial transactions (such as income and expenses) and is part of the process of accounting. It involves data entry and categorization, reconciling (cross-referencing the data in the company books against statements from financial institutions), and generating financial reports that summarize or shed light on a business’s financial position. A bookkeeper is responsible for providing accurate and consistent, up-to-date financial information about your business. Some bookkeeping services offer additional services such as accounts receivable (invoicing and following up on money owed to your business), accounts payable (keeping a record of your business’s outstanding bills and when these get paid), payroll, and other accounting functions.

Good bookkeeping provides:

• Accurate, consistent, and complete records of all your financial transactions for a given period. This is a vital financial tool that helps you manage your money wisely.

• A financial “mind” for your company so that any transaction can be tracked down and referenced.

• Regular accounting reports (monthly, quarterly, or annually) so you can keep track of your financial progress and greatly reduce the time it takes to get your annual taxes done or produce any financial records or documentation needed.

Why do you need bookkeeping?

Whether you do your own bookkeeping for your company or get it done professionally by someone else, good bookkeeping is vital to a business for four main reasons:

1. To have the data you need to make sound decisions and manage your company financially. If you don’t have a clear, up-to-date, and complete financial picture of your company, you have no real way of planning, forecasting, budgeting, or managing your finances properly. You will not know with certainty whether you are viable or near bankruptcy. Essentially, you are operating at risk and flying blind without it. This is one of the most important reasons for bookkeeping: to help you keep your business solvent and expanding.

2. Another key reason for bookkeeping is to ensure the accuracy of your tax reporting and maximize your tax savings. If you do not keep good bookkeeping records, you cannot guarantee that everything you can deduct has been accounted for, nor can you be sure that the income and expenses reported on your tax return are complete and error-free. You have no way to protect yourself or provide clear financial records and evidence should your business ever be subject to an audit. In short, it can be extremely expensive NOT to keep your bookkeeping records in order at all times.

3. To help you get financing when you need it. Creditors and financial institutions always want to see financial reports on your business to determine how much risk they are taking on in lending you money and to determine how much money they are willing to loan you. Accurate and complete bookkeeping takes the time and hassle out of gathering such information, thereby helping you leverage the power of financing.

4. To help prevent financial errors. Without proper bookkeeping records of your income, expenses, assets, liabilities, bills, and invoices, you cannot accurately keep track of any outstanding bills, loans that are due, invoices that still need to be paid, or even prevent errors such as paying a bill twice or overlooking a subscription that you are still being charged for but no longer need.

Whether you do the bookkeeping for your company yourself or you get it done by someone else, you need someone doing your bookkeeping for 4 main reasons:

1. To be able to make sound decisions and manage your company financially. If you have no clear, up-to-date and complete financial picture of your company, you have no real way of planning, forecasting, budgeting or managing your finances properly either. You will not know with certainty whether you are viable or near bankruptcy. You are essentially operating at risk and flying blind. This is one of the most important reasons for bookkeeping: to help you keep your business solvent and expanding.

2. Another vital reason for bookkeeping is to ensure the accuracy of your tax reporting and to maximize your tax savings. If you do not keep accurate bookkeeping records, you cannot guarantee that everything that you can deduct has been accounted for, nor can you be sure that the income and expenses you are reporting on your tax return are accurate. You have no way to protect yourself or provide clear financial records and evidence should your business ever be subject to an audit. In short, it can be extremely expensive NOT to keep accurate and complete bookkeeping records in your business at all times.

3. To help you get financing when you need it. Creditors and financial institutions always want to see financial reports on your business to determine how much risk they are taking on in lending you money and to determine how much money they are willing to loan you. Accurate and complete bookkeeping takes the time and hassle out of gathering such information, thereby helping you leverage the power of financing.

4. To help prevent financial errors. Without proper bookkeeping records of your income, expenses, assets, liabilities, bills and invoices, etc., you cannot accurately keep track of any outstanding bills, loans that are due, invoices that still need to be paid, or even prevent errors (such as paying a bill twice or overlooking a subscription that you are still being charged for but that is no longer needed).

In choosing a good bookkeeper, you want to look at their training and experience, as well as what their clients and any other accounting professionals say about them (such as any CPA or tax professionals they work with). You want someone who is not only trained in Quickbooks or whatever software they will be using, but also in accounting. You want someone who pays attention to detail, is meticulous and takes care to ask you questions and understand your business and your transactions to ensure things are being recorded properly.

If you are looking for cheap, we are not for you. Our focus is on quality and we charge for the value we bring your company, not to compete with low-cost, minimal (and potentially shoddy) service.

Our minimum fee is $350 per month and $85 per hour for booking services, or 7% of any money collected in billing. Our rates for bookkeeping services are set based on an assessment of the number of accounts that need to be tracked for your business, the volume of your transactions, the complications of your accounting and the work involved in providing the service you require.