Billing, payroll, reporting, and other bookkeeping responsibilities are easy tasks for business owners to ignore—until doing so causes serious repercussions. Often business owners attempt to tackle these tasks when they “have time” or they delegate the tasks to an internal resource without the proper know-how. This can lead to inaccurate records, missed payments and penalties, and even overlooked savings opportunities. Outsourcing the bookkeeping function can help solve these issues while offering other advantages as well. Here we look at the benefits of outsourced bookkeeping for any business or organization.
- Reliable financial reporting enables good business decisions. By outsourcing the accounting function, late, inaccurate, and unreliable financial reports become a thing of the past. Timely and accurate financial reports provide critical information needed to make strategic business decisions and can help the company grow, make proactive changes, and save money.
- Outsourced bookkeeping can save the company money and is easily scalable. Instead of taking your valuable time as the business owner or paying full-time or part-time wages and benefits to an employee—including insurance, payroll taxes, unemployment taxes, paid time-off, etc.—you have the opportunity to pay only for the time you need from a staff focused solely on your financials. Most outsourcing can also be done on a fixed fee basis to help you plan for and control the costs. And, as the company grows, opportunities arise, or business transitions occur, outsourcing allows you to easily scale as necessary.
- Bookkeeping takes your focus away from other important business matters. Running a business has multiple facets, and it’s unlikely that bookkeeping is every business owner’s core strength. Even an internal accounting professional requires policies, procedures, and extensive management involvement. Hiring an accounting firm that has expertise in bookkeeping for businesses frees up valuable time that can be put into growing and developing your company, including marketing and sales efforts, product or service expansion, and networking to name a few. Outsourcing allows you to concentrate on what you do best and have peace of mind that your accounting function will be taken care of, too.
- Outsourcing gives you a financial expert on your team. Effective financial management requires a deep understanding of accounting best practices, current laws and regulations, and compliance requirements. By bringing in an outsourced provider, you have access to the right set of knowledge for tasks from payroll and accounts receivables to financial statement analyses and tax planning. An accounting firm brings experience from a variety of client situations along with multiple team members’ expertise and certifications.
- Risk of errors and compliance issues will be minimized with outsourcing. Business owners often leave tasks such as bookkeeping until the end of the quarter or, worse yet, the end of year. While it’s natural to want to control costs and manage the financial function in-house when you cannot devote the time that is needed regularly you are increasing risk of errors and potentially liability. When you outsource, you can minimize the risks with a combination of your limited involvement and the outsourced staff with the appropriate expertise.
- Outsourcing eliminates the need to purchase and keep up with the latest and best accounting software and systems. Keeping up with the latest version of sophisticated accounting software often makes little sense for emerging and other small companies, especially those with limited needs. By outsourcing, you’re essentially purchasing those tools indirectly without having to do the system research, licensing, or funding. The best software will also keep your accounting files organized and backed up for many years should you ever get audited by the IRS.
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There are significant benefits when you leverage the experience of seasoned accounting professionals to prepare your monthly and quarterly statements, manage accounts payables and receivables, and perform other financial tasks. If you are considering outsourced bookkeeping services for your business, contact the professionals at Selden Fox today.
