What’s one of the biggest struggles entrepreneurs have with managing their financial data? Keeping it up-to-date and in real time ALL THE TIME. I’ve seen business owners scramble to get their financial data together in order to meet a loan officer’s deadline or even to sell their business.

In any case, whether your business is generating $100k or $1 million, whether you’re a freelancer or head of your own corporation, you need someone to manage the day-to-day finances and the details that have potential to fall through the cracks. That’s precisely what a bookkeeper can do for your business. Here are just a few of the ways that outsourcing your financial administrative tasks to a bookkeeper can help your business grow.

Budget monitoring

You probably already know how important a budget is to your personal financial portfolio. If you don’t allocate your money BEFORE you spend it, you’ll end up with a cash flow issue that will have you scratching your head and wondering where your money went. In the same way, your business needs a budget. You can call it whatever you want, a spending plan, quarterly projections, forecasting, etc. But it’s an important part of running You, Inc.

Just like a personal budget, it doesn’t work if you simply write it down and forget about it. But that’s exactly what happens as we get busy in our day-to-day operations. As business owners, we focus on making a sale, getting our brand recognized, providing good customer service. Administrative stuff like bookkeeping gets done all at once when we decide we need to see some numbers.

How do we eliminate the confusion of messy books and incomplete data? Hire a bookkeeper. Whether virtual or local, a bookkeeper can help you monitor your business spending and provide you with a periodic report to make sure you are staying on target with your budget. Organized data will help you determine if you are meeting your revenue goals and keeping your expenses within the limits you’ve set. In addition to making sure all your transactions are properly accounted for, your bookkeeper doubles as an accountability buddy!

Note: If you’re hiring a bookkeeper for basic bookkeeping tasks, they wouldn’t generally create business budgets with you. Your accountant or financial manager would help you create the budget based on a comprehensive analysis of spending patterns, your business goals, and your projected revenue and expenses for the year. After a final draft of the budget has been adopted, the bookkeeper can help you stick to the budget by making sure you’re aware of how your cash flow is lining up with your projections.

Accounts payable

Another area in which you bookkeeper is really important is accounts payable. Accounts payable is an accounting term that describes who you owe and how much…basically, all the moving parts that help you run your business, for example, your vendors, your suppliers, your contractors, etc. Of course, you’ll want to make sure that your expenses are as low as they can be. That means taking advantage of any payment discounts and avoiding late fees.

Just like credit card interest can creep in and inflate your personal expenses, hidden costs in your business like late fees, payment processing fees, and interest expenses can throw your budget off. While you’re busy running your business, getting sales, and growing your brand, you want someone to be able to make sure your bills are paid on time. A bookkeeper can do that, as well as research for you money-saving options on vendors, suppliers, and credit card processing systems.

Accounts receivable

You can’t keep a business running without paying customers, right? When you have a 9-5, you get paid on a regular schedule. That money comes in at the exact same time every pay period. But in business, clients usually get invoiced when the work is complete and they may pay at different times throughout the month. Usually, payments come sporadically throughout the month.

As your business grows and your client base expands, sometimes payments fall through the cracks, unless you have help. While you’re busy performing the work and making a great impression on your clients, your bookkeeper can invoice them, send contracts, keep track of outstanding invoices, send notices/late payment penalties, and depending on your desired level of control, make bank deposits/transfers on your behalf.

If you already have a virtual assistant, ask your VA if they can perform these duties for an additional charge. Usually, the additional service would be less expensive than hiring a separate full-time or even part-time bookkeeper.

Interested in offering bookkeeping services?

If you are a virtual assistant, and want to add bookkeeping to the services you offer, we have a FREE course coming up that you may be interested in. Sign up here for updates!