Looking at the True Cost of Bookkeeping
If you are trying to get a business off the ground, you will probably realize sooner rather than later what a difficult task it can become. It truly takes a special person to be up for managing every element that comes with running a business, and if a business is going anywhere, it will likely soon become too big to handle on one’s own. This is where individual businesses turn into companies, and this is why companies turn toward bookkeepers.
Keeping within the law
Bookkeeping is a skill that should not be taken lightly. Businesses throughout Australia have increasingly begun to look for services related to bookkeeping in Melbourne, for example, to keep them competitive in today’s difficult market. There are a wide range of factors that need to be kept in mind, including taxes and legalities related to staying within the law.
Businesses, of course, are generally subject to the law, which means they need to play fairly in order to stay in the game. Bookkeepers are hired to be experts in the rules of the game, and to have the knowledge regarding the latest financial laws and how those laws might impact business.
As a result, there is no reason not to get one as soon as possible if you are in charge of a business, and the rates of a good bookkeeper should not deter you from hiring him or her.
The full financial picture
Although bookkeepers certainly make the process of staying within the bounds of the law much smoother for businesses, it is necessary to take a look at the full financial picture related to hiring one.
For example, if you hire a certified public bookkeeper so he or she can look after the entire bookkeeping component of your business, it will be necessary to remember that in-house employees would require salaries each and every month. They would also likely require health insurance, which should not be skipped, as a sick bookkeeper will not be an accurate bookkeeper.
Similarly, bookkeeping services themselves, by their very nature, take time, which means that a qualified and experienced accountant would charge a higher fee per hour.
However, by hiring someone to work in-house rather than contracting work out on an as-needed basis, the hired keeper quickly becomes an asset rather than a liability since the hired keeper will cost far less than the external bookkeeper.
Can you trust your bookkeeper?
Another factor related to the hiring of a bookkeeper is that of trust. Naturally, if you cannot trust your bookkeeper, you will soon need to hire another one, or else he or she might steal from you or drive you out of business.
You will entrust your entire financial acumen to said bookkeeper, so you will need to make sure you hire one who will abide by the laws and ethical boundaries of privacy and confidentiality. Security needs to be a high priority in order to make sure that information related to your business and clientele does not fall into the wrong hands.
This is another issue of outsourcing a bookkeeper rather than hiring one to work in-house. It is much harder to verify the security and trustworthiness of an external bookkeeper than it is to verify the actions of an internal one.
Rates will vary
The rates of good bookkeepers will naturally be more than those of newly minted keepers, but when you are looking for an accountant, you are paying for experience as much as you are paying for competence, and this is not the time to try to save a little money, as it can cost you dearly in the long run.
