Does the following situation sound familiar?
You show up to meet with your accountant at tax time with a shoe box stuffed full of receipts. You also bring 4-5 manual Excel spreadsheets and a backup of your QuickBooks® / GL file (that might be months behind). You hand this information over to your accountant and they spend hours making sense of this material for the sole purpose of preparing a tax return.
During your tax review meeting, you may be surprised to learn that you made far less money than you thought you did. On the other end of the spectrum, you may now owe more in taxes than you were expecting. Either case will result in a bill from your CPA for all of the re-work they needed to perform, which could’ve been avoided. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to proactively handle these situations before the year is over and reduce your annual tax prep bill? This can be done with good bookkeeping.
If the above resonates with you, you are not alone. Statistics say almost 75% of all small businesses are in the same boat and choose not to hire a bookkeeper to keep them up to date. Because of that choice, they have lost the opportunity to understand the financial end of their business and are losing time and money. It has been said by many professional business consultants that most High School sports teams are run better than most small businesses, and we see it every day.
Not All Bookkeepers Are Created Equal:
There are many bookkeepers out there, but they are all not created equal. It is vital to pick a partner who understands what you do and how it relates to your financials. Evaluate quality and expertise and make sure you are investing in coverage. We receive many calls from businesses that are frustrated because their current bookkeeper “is out on vacation for two weeks and can’t be reached”, “they are getting out of the business”, “they are months behind on the work” or “they don’t understand our business”.
Remember, good bookkeeping will save you money not only on your tax bill, but it should also make you more money throughout the year by having real-time data to make business decisions from.
Up To Date Financials Means:
- Being able to proactively plan for increases or decreases in inventory.
- Managing the staffing levels of your workforce based on payroll % to revenue to control labor costs.
- Understanding expense % to sales so you can make adjustments to affect your bottom line.
With accurate and timely numbers you can make sound decisions to grow your business faster and save you from making financial mistakes that are not visible to you today. If you have questions please don’t hesitate to contact us.
