Online Bookkeeping Business

Author: Mani Malarvannan

Fortune 500 companies have been off shoring the financial and accounting business processes (BPO) to countries like India, Philippians, China, etc. These companies have big budgets and a big team of consultants who analyzes the total cost and ROI of sending their financial and accounting work to the service providers in offshore locations. Though smaller companies have started off shoring their financial and accounting work to offshore locations but like big corporations small businesses do not have huge budget to hire consultants to identify the total cost of off shoring their financial and accounting work to offshore locations. But small businesses can still perform their due diligence in calculating total cost of their offshore engagement and gain critical knowledge in finding ROI of sending their financial and accounting work to offshore locations. In this report we will go through all of the hidden costs of offshoring financial and accounting business processes.

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One advantage of the introduction of the GST was initially to force you to review your finances on a quarterly basis resulting in a greater awareness of your ongoing financial position.

This has led to many small businesses utilising a computerised accounting software package such as MYOB or Quickbooks to do the hackwork and present you with the necessary reports and if required even the BAS itself.

However, owning the software does not make you a bookkeeper, and whilst the software companies have done their best to make the packages easy to use, the operator still needs a basic understanding of bookkeeping.

We’ve helped many small business owners with book-keeping, and we can help you. By outsourcing your bookkeeping needs you can free up your time to do what you do best in working your business, while we do what we do best, working on the bookkeeping side of your business.

The work of a bookkeeper is not the same as that of an accountant. Indeed, many accountancy firms employ or subcontract bookkeepers to prepare the figures for their financial reports.

Bookkeepers enter all the data, invoices, receipts, dockets, and match up the money that comes into a business with the money that goes out of the business.

The bookkeeper will reconcile the bank accounts, make sure that all the figures entered into the general ledger match the figures on the bank statement.

Accountants will look after the taxation matters of a business – they are professionally qualified and keep upto date with all the updates and changes in tax laws and rulings from the Australian Taxation Office.

The finer points of accounting and taxation are best left to the professionals whose job among other functions is to keep you updated with changes in taxation as well as maximise your deductions. Your book keeper should be able to prepare a reconciled trial balance.

View bookkeeping entries automatically generated from all other modules in the Small Business Manager range, easily record payables and receivables, use pre-designed templates (depreciation, salaries, credit, etc.), automatically declare your VAT, print your accounting statements (balance, general ledger, journals), tax statements, financial statements and export everything to your accountant at the click of your mouse.

Bookkeeping?the "dreaded" word is something we all have to worry about. Business owners rarely go into business to deal with the financial aspects of running a business. It’s easy to understand why! Who wants to do all those boring record keeping functions? Not many. Therefore, one of the first things most entrepreneurs do is hire a bookkeeper. Though hiring a friend, relative or anyone who isn’t experienced with the basics of bookkeeping may be a recipe for DISASTER!

You may have the best of intentions and they probably do to; however, you need to be objective when hiring a bookkeeper if you want a GREAT one!

5 Tips for Hiring a Great Bookkeeper:

1.KNOWLEDGEABLE. Make sure they have a basic understanding of accounting and how the "big" picture all fits together. The difference between an accountant and a bookkeeper is that an accountant will do more analysis and usually has additional training. So, while you may not need an accountant on staff, you do want someone who has a basic understanding of the difference between assets, liabilities, equity, income, cost of goods sold, and expense accounts.

2.AVAILABLE. Ensure that they will be available and dependable to keep your bookkeeping up to date. Your information should be input on a consistent basis so you can get reports in a timely manner. If they are trying to "squeeze" this function into their other responsibilities, they may not give it the focus they should.

3.ACCOUNTABLE. You want a bookkeeper that will keep you accountable. If they have checks or deposits that they are unsure of, you want them to be willing to hold you accountable and get good information for record keeping. You don’t want someone who is going to code everything to "miscellaneous."

4.COMPETENT. You want to keep your books on a computer, not by hand. So ensure that your bookkeeper is competent in using a computerized bookkeeping program, like QuickBooks? You want a full-service package that incorporates your budgeting, estimating, invoicing, job costing, bookkeeping, and reporting aspects all in one. Though it is key that they are competent enough to be able to input good information into the computer system.

5.FAMILIAR. Having a bookkeeper that is familiar with your industry will shorten the learning curve and provide better details. While the basic bookkeeping fundamentals are applicable to all industries, there are very different specifics needed for different industries. Construction companies rely on job costing to understand their profitability. While, retailers are focused on inventory aspects. Restaurant, non-profit, and service-based industries require different insights too. It’s important to have some basic accounting knowledge, but ideally you want someone with industry familiarity.

7 Questions to include in your interviewing process:

1.What companies/industries do you have bookkeeping experience in?

2.What computer software programs are you familiar with? Word? Excel? QuickBooks? Other?

3.How do you continue to improve your skills?

4.How do you trouble shoot when you have a problem?

5.What time management secrets do you use to ensure projects are completed on time?

6.What are the basic financial statements and why are they important?

7.How will they help you be accountable to the details of record keeping? Some feel uneasy about holding their boss "accountable", but that is exactly what you need!

Hiring employees should never be taken lightly, especially when they are going to be doing your bookkeeping! Without good financial reports, you have no idea how your business is doing. Garbage In = Garbage Out. Input is critical to having a successful business report that you can utilize in your management decisions. These same requirements should be incorporated if you are hiring an outside firm to do your bookkeeping also. These 5 Tips for Hiring a GREAT Bookkeeper will help you!

Contact: Pam Newman is a Certified Management Accountant, Author, and Certified QuickBooks?ProAdvisor for Financial and Point-of-Sale software. For more information, visit her website at http://www.quickbooksinformation.com or call 816.304.4398. Email: pam@rppc.net

Any business deal needs the financial aspects set right prior to everything; therefore, everyone getting into a business venture stresses upon to hire a bookkeeper experienced with the basics as well as the advanced levels of bookkeeping. But experience and expertise don’t come in forms of stickers; hence, you need to judge a few points before you hire a bookkeeper.

First of all, your preferred bookkeeper must be knowledgeable about accounting as a whole i.e. he/she must have the power to decide and imply the methodology according to the demands of a situation. At the least, the bookkeeper must be able to understand and differentiate between assets and liabilities, equity and income and profits and expenditures.

Next, it is about availability and dependability. A bookkeeper is not one if he is not found during the times of need. Besides, the job of a bookkeeper is to provide inputs consistently to make available the reports as and when wanted.

Find a bookkeeper that shall keep you accountable i.e. who is not going to put most of the things under miscellaneous. That also means the bookkeeper should be a competent one, with a decent exposure to computerized bookkeeping. Therefore, knowing how to operate the most popular accounting software is vital for a bookkeeper as much as his knowledge on the industry he is hired for. That way, he shall be knowing how to enter the figures at their right places, thus taking his own efficiency up a notch as well.