For many businesses, their bookkeeping causes a lot of pain. However, when handled correctly, there are many pains that proper bookkeeping can remedy. Common reasons that bookkeeping causes pain are: it is intimidating, people don’t like it, and it’s often way behind because it gets pushed to the back burner.
It is crucial to keep up on your bookkeeping so that you can keep your business on track towards its goals. If you are feeling any of the following bookkeeping pains, you need to make some changes to your current system.
1.) Time Crunch
There is never enough time to accomplish everything in your small business, is there? People often use time as an excuse for not performing a task when they don’t want to attend to it or don’t know how to get it done.
If you don’t find it practical to do your bookkeeping because it takes you away from more critical business tasks, then you should probably outsource it.
A good outsourced bookkeeping service can take on the majority of bookkeeping tasks and let you focus on running your business. It would be best if you stayed involved enough with the bookkeeping process to remain in control. You also definitely want to be involved with crucial tasks such as financial reporting.
2.) Stress and Anxiety
When you start talking bookkeeping and taxes with many business owners, you often trigger a worried look. Bookkeeping can cause a lot of anxiety and worry for the small business owner, but for outsourced bookkeeping experts, it creates an opportunity.
Creating the proper bookkeeping system and giving a business owner a set of books that adds value will reduce their anxiety and worry when it comes to their business finances. Quite often, the key is accurately updating the books regularly.
If bookkeeping causes you to stress, then don’t take it on. Stress is unproductive for your business. People stress over bookkeeping because they know they should be keeping up on it, but they don’t have the time or knowledge to do so. Rather than stress about your bookkeeping let a professional take that load off of you.
3.) Access to Updated Information
Another pain that bookkeeping can create is a lack of access to updated information.
New clients often complain that the books are behind and inaccurate. Business owners complain that they don’t get reports from their bookkeeper often enough, and when they do, they don’t contain accurate or relevant information.
To run a business, you need updated and accurate financial information that can aid you in making business decisions.
A good bookkeeping system can and should give a business owner access to regularly-updated financial information that is accurate.
The major trends in the accounting industry right now are a movement to cloud-based solutions and the need for more regularly updated information. You should set expectations with your bookkeeper on how often you would like to see the books updated.
Also, be sure that you have access to your bookkeeping system and financial reports anytime you want them and from where ever you are.
4.) Access to Relevant Information
If you don’t have updated information, you likely have no idea of where your business stands, and if you don’t have access to the relevant information you surely have no idea where you are going.
Outsourced bookkeeping services should not only give you a firm grasp on where you currently stand as a business but more importantly, where you are going. Your small business financial reporting should not only identify possible issues but opportunities as well.
If an opportunity presents itself in your financials, you want to be ready to take advantage of it. Conversely, if you see potential problems, you want to try and get ahead of them.
5.) Ability To Adjust
An inability to adjust to happening changes can be a huge pain point.
If you don’t know where you are at or where you are going, you are in the wrong spot. This position leaves you incapable of making the proper adjustments to keep your business on track.
A robust bookkeeping system will keep you fully in tune with the financial aspects of your business. This will give you the flexibility and power that you need to make quick adjustments in your business to overcome market changes and take care of opportunities that present themselves.
6.) Taxes
Taxes are painful for a lot of businesses. If you are continually filing for extensions or have not filed taxes at all, then you are feeling a lot of pain.
Business owners hate taxes, but too many of them take a reactive approach to taxes rather than a proactive approach. You should be reviewing your tax situation with your CPA at least semi-annually if not quarterly.
If your bookkeeping system is not kept current, then you have no way to solve your tax pain.
With an outsourced bookkeeping service, you should never have tax pains. If your books are updated regularly filing your taxes should be simple.
A tax review and estimate before year-end is probably one of the most critical things you can do regarding taxes.
Come January you shouldn’t be thinking about taxes you should only be worried about keeping your business on track towards its goals. Closing out the end of year bookkeeping should be nothing more than closing out one more month of books.