Thinking about handling your profits and balances in Excel yourself? Think again. Being an entrepreneur is a thrilling business. You often spend all your hours thinking, creating – the big dreams you have are limitless! But it’s important to manage those big visions with successful operations, such as basic accounting. Most new small businesses, however, don’t know where to start when it comes to keeping their finances organized and establishing their cornerstone to success. But the answer can be easier than you think! A bookkeeper can be an integral part of a new business’ team. Beyond keeping your day-to-day financials accurate, a bookkeeper can offer insightful financial services advice for your growing business. Think of this teammate as more of a financial advisor than a numbers cruncher. Here are several value-adds this whiz can bring to your core entrepreneurial team.
- A bookkeeper allows you to focus on your business goals and on your strengths.With a bookkeeper on your payroll, you’re not the one in charge of chasing receipts and trying to figure out accounting software. As you start your entrepreneurial journey, you will need to build the cornerstone of your success on financial stability. This begins with choosing an accounting software that will work for your business. Who better to ask than an experienced bookkeeper? Accounting software will establish processes that will create financial awareness and outputs so you know where you stand financially every month. A bookkeeper can help you create these processes from the beginning while allowing you the focus to build your business and keep these key elements working. In the beginning you and your bookkeeper should work closely to develop your long-term financial plan and goals. As you become comfortable with meeting your plan goals, you can meet with your bookkeeper less frequently – although you may not want to! Having a bookkeeper who is there to help you succeed and who you can work well with and trust is key to your success. This will free up your time to focus on your niche, not your books.
- You’re an expert in X, bookkeepers are experts in accounting. Let a bookkeeper be the expert when it comes to managing your accounts payables and receivables and crunching numbers to get the digits for taxes and other must-haves. Your strength is in the business and you probably didn’t get into business to do more math. Your strength is probably not in accounting concepts, but categorizing transactions, collecting on accounts receivables, and sending out invoices are the strengths and expertise of bookkeepers. You should be spending your time developing your business and making your dreams a reality. Let the math whiz focus on your shoebox full of receipts and computing your chart of accounts. A bookkeeper will know how to set up these processes, track appropriate expenses, and save you valuable resources, not only in entering all that data, but also in helping you determine where you are spending your money, where you could make some changes, and encouraging you along the way.
- The investment in finances now actually saves you money in the long run. There’s nothing worse than incorrect ledgers. Resolving a financial faux pas may lead to delays in paying your employees and other business woes. Understanding your finances can be confusing, but having a bookkeeper helping track all these categories will save you time and money. Do you know how to create a Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, and Statement of Cash Flow reports? And more importantly, do you know how to read them? Or recognize when the information isn’t categorized correctly? An experienced bookkeeper will know how to generate accurate reports producing data worthy of presenting to your investors and CPAs. Keeping your vendors paid, investors informed, and customers happy will not only create a reputation for you that others want to work with, it will also create finances that you can pay yourself and invest in your growing company.
Solid accounting is critical to getting your big dream up-and-running. But you don’t need to try to do it all yourself. Hiring a professional bookkeeper can get your business to the next level, saving you more time and money than you realize. Crunching numbers and long-term financial support? That’s something every entrepreneur can appreciate.
Adrienne Lambing is an advisor at Breakaway Bookkeeping & Advising focused on coaching entrepreneurs on how to start their own businesses. She is most passionate about helping new women-owned businesses and uses financial insights to create a roadmap for long-term growth and success. Adrienne is passionate about serving her clients and helping them solve any problem from routine bookkeeping to complex audits. Adrienne finds joy in using numbers to forecast future revenues and identify opportunities for strategic growth.
Bookkeeper stock photo by dizain/Shutterstock