A bookkeeper will help you with your business’ daily accounts, recording transactions such as sales. But that’s not the only thing that they do. So why is it a good idea to hire a bookkeeper? Below is an overview of what a bookkeeper does and why many business owners find that it’s a good choice to hire one.
A bookkeeper’s tasks:
- Track payments, sales, receipts and payments
- Take care of organizing, collating and recording financial information each day and storing the data inside ledgers
- Record a business’ financial information in a simple way so accountants are able to access it
Why should you hire a bookkeeper?
If you’ve started a business, chances are that you love running it, and that you concentrate on your favorite tasks. However, if you’re like the majority of business owners, you don’t like recording your financial transactions.
If you own a restaurant, you’re going to have things like:
- Invoices from suppliers for food items
- Sales that are recorded through your POS system
- Cash transactions
- Credit card transactions,
- Wages for staff
This is a lot of information that needs to be tracked and recorded, especially if you don’t like bookkeeping or you don’t understand it.
Without performing proper bookkeeping, it’s really easy for the transactions to not be recorded and they can just be piling up until the month’s end. There could be mistakes, and there could be important details forgotten or lost. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a bookkeeper. A bookkeeper is able to lighten your business load. They also can record your business’ daily transactions such as invoices and receipts.
What does a bookkeeper actually do?
A bookkeeper uses the same methods for recording finances as an accountant. This is done so that the accountant is able to process the business’ financial information in a quick, easy manner.
The bookkeeper will:
- Take your invoices, receipts and other details of transactions
- Record that information using accounting software and the right methods for accounting
- Work together with you so that the numbers make sense
But there is actually a lot more to the bookkeeping process than recording the transactions that happen each day. People doing this work usually are very skilled at using software for accounting.
Bookkeepers give you advice on:
- Solutions for streamlining the workflow of your business
- Payroll services for simplifying how you are paying staff
- Fixing mistakes that inexperienced staff makes
- Training for your small business regarding using accounting software
How are bookkeepers different from accountants?
A Bookkeeper will perform work each day and make sure that accounts are accurate and very detailed. They can also give you advice on issues which could affect you soon, like problems with cashflow or late payments on invoices.
An Accountant will examine the accounts that were created, a lot of times, every three months. They also will make any small adjustments that are needed. They will then use that information that the accounts record in order to file official reports like tax reports. They’ll also give advisory services of the highest level.
In order for your business to run smoothly, you should have a bookkeeper and an accountant. The bookkeeper will do the work daily, and the accountant will be handling the official reporting and giving you business advice.
