Wearing multiple hats and switching gears every 30 minutes are common traits among small business owners. You’re focused on growing your business and attracting new customers but in a light, streamlined manner. Only, plenty of business owners end up cutting corners on accounting and bookkeeping due to limited time and resources – leading to the dreaded act of DIY bookkeeping.
At NorthStar Bookkeeping, we understand that bootstrapped businesses may feel trapped when it comes to daily bookkeeping and financial reporting. You need accurate service, but may not have the capital for an in-house bookkeeper.
While it may be tempting to carry out accounting duties yourself, doing so is likely to cost you considerable time, energy, and sanity. For the past decade, these are the stressors we’ve taken off of countless business owners’ shoulders through time-conscious outsourced bookkeeping services.
Find out whether you should outsource your bookkeeping with these telltale signs, and contact NorthStar if you’re ready to reclaim time wasted on accounting duties.
5 Signs You Should Outsource Your Bookkeeping
Are you working late to organize your own books, or using outdated record-keeping techniques that widen the margin for error?
Plenty of small businesses find that their finances are completely disorganized, and either try to fix it themselves or bashfully hold back from approaching a professional for help out of embarrassment. Similar to cleaning your own house before the cleaners arrive, despite it being their job.
When it comes to the delicate act of bookkeeping, it’s important to leave it to the experts no matter how disorganized your books are. Especially if you’re spending too many hours on accounting, have employee fraud concerns, or are going through a period of rapid growth.
Here are the five tells that it’s time to outsource your bookkeeping:
Wasted Hours on Accounting
Small and midsized business owners simply don’t have the time to spend their evenings and weekends on bookkeeping tasks. There are more important, revenue-generating duties to focus on, rather than staying up late to reconcile the books and prepare confusing financial statements.
The hours lost to DIY accounting eat into time better spent on strategic planning and other core business activities. When you outsource your bookkeeping duties to an experienced firm, you effectively free up your schedule for more high-level priorities, while avoiding the stress of complex accounting tasks.
Outdated Record-Keeping
Outdated record-keeping such as spreadsheets and shoebox storage only increases the margin for bookkeeping errors. It’s important to not only have access to modern accounting tools, but also deep knowledge of how to use them to minimize risk. to have a dedicated outsourced bookkeeper who uses cloud-based bookkeeping platforms
Rather than learning the ins and outs of new, complex software, you can gain an expert who’s already privy to these platforms by outsourcing your bookkeeping. Say goodbye to digging up paper files and reviewing confusing spreadsheets, and hello to automated data entry and real-time reporting.
Employee Fraud Concerns
While it hurts to think the worst of your employees, internal fraud is a very real concern for small and midsize business owners. In fact, a 2023 survey reports that businesses lose 5% of their annual revenue to employee fraud on average. For small businesses specifically, these losses can prove all the more devastating.
Knowing this, it’s necessary to have accountability and internal controls in place, such as an outsourced bookkeeper. When you outsource your bookkeeping, you gain a dedicated team that’s committed to trustworthy, accurate financial reporting, without the heavy expenses of multiple employees, benefits, and other full-time employment costs.
Having that extra pair of eyes on your finances also acts as another layer of protection, not just to prevent fraud, but to boost your business’s overall financial organization.
Accounting & Payroll Delays
Missing tax deadlines or submitting payroll late can lead to costly penalties, alongside employee dissatisfaction.
When accounting falls through the cracks in-house, outsourced bookkeepers are available to provide reliable assistance. Thanks to up-to-date technology and defined processes, outsourced teams such as NorthStar Bookkeeping can deliver reports on time, every time.
Rapid Growth or Expansion
Success and growth are very good things, but like any good thing, it has its caveats. A larger operation means more complex finances and more time spent bookkeeping, which means other parts of your business may lose much-needed attention.
Plus, if you lack the expertise to carry out your business’s bookkeeping, growth can become a catalyst for errors and even significant fines. By opting to outsource your bookkeeping, you reclaim lost time for growth-oriented tasks, while ensuring that no record-keeping errors lead to consequences down the line.
Outsource Your Bookkeeping & Reclaim Lost Time
As a busy small business owner, you’d rather not waste time and energy handling your own books. Nor do you want the constant stress of maintaining accurate records, or gleaning complex insights from confusing financial data.
By partnering with an experienced outsourced bookkeeper such as NorthStar, you can focus on your core business tasks and revenue-generating projects. Our team of dedicated bookkeepers can deliver error-free record-keeping, financial reporting, and more, freeing you from paperwork and ensuring your data is organized and up-to-date.
Submit a form on our Contact page to partner with NorthStar Bookkeeping and take accounting duties off of your plate.