5 things to consider before hiring a bookkeeper

5 Things To Consider Before Hiring A Bookkeeper

There are a lot of important decisions to be made regarding the financial side of any business, and when you’re running your own company, this can often seem overwhelming. For any business to progress and become truly successful, there must be clarity surrounding its finances.

If you have your own company, but are struggling to keep on top of your finances or even to understand them fully - then you should probably consider hiring a bookkeeper. A good bookkeeper will help you to understand your businesses finances better, and help you to feel more in control of the way in which it is run.

If hiring a bookkeeper is the right decision for you and your business, then you’d be wise to consider the following five points: �

Make an informed choice by collecting references and recommendations: Talk to other local business owners about their own bookkeepers, and whether they have any recommendations for you. Once you have found a bookkeeper that you might like to employ – whether through a personal recommendation or simply by selecting one from a list of bookkeepers - make sure that you seek their references and call them. You could even hire a company to complete a background check on the

bookkeeper before you hire them, which may sound extreme, but don’t forget that they will have access to many of your company’s private accounts, and so being able to trust them is paramount. ●

You’ll need to begin by meeting with your accountant, face to face: It’s always best to begin by meeting personally with your bookkeeper, and once you’ve established a good working relationship together, you can then ask them to communicate with you on a regular basis, by whichever means suits you both. It could be a phone call once a week, or a fortnightly email.

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Talk rates before you sign on the dotted line: Establishing an hourly rate that you’ll pay your bookkeeper, is something that must be done before any work commences. You may also want to discuss whether you begin with a junior bookkeeper, who will often work for a senior accountant.

Establish a clear monthly bookkeeping budget: Discuss your budget allowances with your bookkeeper, so that they are clear on what you can and cannot afford to pay them each month. When you first hire a bookkeeper, they may need to put in more hours for the first month or so, to get your finances in order, and then as a system is established, their workload may decrease.

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Decide upon how your bookkeeper will access your businesses financial data: One of the simplest ways to give your bookkeeper easy access to your financial records, is to give them your online details for credit cards and bank accounts. They can then login and access them whenever they need to. Deciding where you store your financial data will need to be decided upon too; your bookkeeper will need to access reports swiftly, so storing the data at your office will enable the bookkeeper to access them remotely through a connection to your office computer.

Hiring a bookkeeper will give you, as the business owner or manager, time to spend on other important aspects of your company which may previously have taken a back seat, due to your commitment to organising your financial records.

Miami Bookkeeping was founded with the purpose of helping small businesses outsource the time-consuming and tedious work known as bookkeeping. For more than 10 years, our company has been providing bookkeeping services in Coral Gables and Miami for hundreds of small businesses. If you are looking for bookkeeping in Coral Gables and Miami, contact us today at support@miamibookkeeping.com