Growing Your Business

The Business Benefits of Hiring a Bookkeeper

by
Julie Farless
on
4/13/2017
The Business Benefits of Hiring a Bookkeeper

No matter whether a business is small, mid-sized or large, eliminating unnecessary mistakes is a key principle for business success. This general maxim is particularly true where financial data is concerned.

One easy to miss error can be the difference between a major financial mistake, an IRS audit or a data entry error that wastes valuable time. A bookkeeper spots these critical mishaps that can plague a business, which is immensely valuable to a business for several key reasons.

A Bookkeeper Helps Businesses Move Forward

To effectively compete in the business marketplace, businesses must continue to innovate by moving forward. Costly errors, business expense confusion, and lost transactions all take a business backward.

A quality bookkeeper paves a path for success that a business can rely on simply by catching the errors that hinder a business from functioning optimally. More importantly, a bookkeeper reduces risk by shedding light on unethical business practices.

Fraud and embezzlement can easily go unnoticed when a business is inattentive regarding critical financial data. The fact remains that any business with employees and business partners is at risk of an unscrupulous employee committing fraud or embezzling.

An honest bookkeeper who excels at their job will spot suspect transactions and inform necessary executives. Without proper bookkeeping records, such transactions can go unnoticed, which significantly hinders business success once the financial improprieties are discovered. 

Businesses Make Wiser Decisions with Accurate Bookkeeping

In addition to catching errors and reducing risk, a bookkeeper helps businesses make better business decisions as well. A quality bookkeeper highlights and identifies areas of redundancy that negatively affect cash-flow, and a bookkeeper will also spot financial opportunities based on budgets and allocated resources.

Additionally, a bookkeeper can help your business reduce or increase spending towards certain facets of the business when appropriate. For example, if a fast food restaurant is open 24 hours, quality bookkeeping can help management decide whether operating the restaurant past midnight is worth it from a financial point of view.

Without a proper accounting of the business's financial data, it is difficult to make informed decisions that can drastically benefit the business. Quality bookkeeping, then, is synonymous with informed decision-making. 

Bookkeeping Ensures Compliance During Tax Season

From small businesses to the largest of corporations, business tax laws govern every aspect of the business. Without careful bookkeeping, businesses will not have the certainty of knowing they have the answers they need during tax season should the IRS come calling.

Bookkeeping helps businesses effectively pay all income taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes and, if applicable, workers' compensation taxes. Sophisticated bookkeeping can greatly reduce the risk that the IRS will even audit in the first place, but even if they do, your business will have the answers the IRS needs to hear.

If a business is audited, bookkeeping records such as receipts, tax returns, and canceled checks will all help the process go smoothly. As such, bookkeeping is a critical business advantage when it comes to effectively getting through tax season unscathed.

Bookkeeping Improves Day-to-Day Business Functions

Finally, a bookkeeper enhances your business day-to-day functions with a better understanding of your numbers, which leads to improved cash management procedures.

Day-to-day functions are improved in all facets when businesses operate with clarity. Bookkeeping offers crucial clarity and insight into every facet of business numbers, which helps identify and explain the cause of any financial irregularity. As a result, every dollar and financial data figure can be accounted for and fully explained. 

With every dollar and cent accounted for, businesses can create an effective financial paper trail for their business. Savvy businesses will refer to this paper trail daily to get a complete grasp on the business opportunities that can potentially maximize their business success.

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that bookkeeping is only a business benefit once something catastrophic has occurred, but the reality of bookkeeping is that your business benefits from thorough bookkeeping on a daily basis.

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Julie Farless

Julie Farless

Martinez & Shanken, PLLC is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) firm based in Gilbert, Arizona. We provide a full range of accounting, bookkeeping, consulting, outsourcing and business services, but we specialize in tax preparation. We work with you to ensure that your personal or business processes are conducted in a manner that ensures ongoing integrity in your financial transactions. We are available to answer your questions and help with your ongoing tax planning and changing business needs.

Deborah Martinez & Earl Shanken
29 reviews

Arizona

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