Most small business do not have the work required to hire a full-time in-house bookkeeper. But that does not make the work go away. Small business owners still need to keep records of their income and expenses and must pay their taxes. Outsourcing your bookkeeping is a way to keep your financial information up to date. A Bookkeeping Edmonton firm can help by providing you with the resources to do so.
Outsourcing your bookkeeping can offer a lot of benefits to your business. It can be an efficient way to pool your resources and engage a skilled bookkeeper to keep your financials up to date. Advantages include:
- Expertise – You get the expertise of a professional by hiring someone who is an expert in the field of bookkeeping. The firm you hire will provide the skilled worker for you. You do not have to put the time into training someone to do the job.
- Cost Saving – You can save your money because you don’t have to have the space for additional staff or take the time to train them.
- Efficiency – You can increase efficiency within your office. You can cut payroll when you are able to cut down on delegating a lot of duties to one individual as they may need to work additional hours to complete all the work delegated to them. Outsourcing allows them to cut their work load and be more efficient at their main job.
- Staffing – You can control staffing needs. Your business may have a few months during the year, where you are extremely busy and other months where you have little work. Constant hiring and subsequent layoffs cost you money and time better used elsewhere in your business. By outsourcing your bookkeeping needs, you no longer need to worry about hiring or laying off a bookkeeper.
Outsourcing your bookkeeping also has its disadvantages. Disadvantages include:
- Privacy Issues – By hiring an outside bookkeeper, you are releasing confidential information into their care. You want to be sure that this information will not be used inappropriately. If you are electronically transferring information to them, you want to ensure the information transferred is encrypted so that it cannot be used by others.
- Loss of Control – When you hire an outsourced bookkeeper, you lose a certain amount of control. The bookkeeper becomes more of a business partner rather than an employee that you can direct and control the work of. They will follow your directions but because they are an expert in what they do, they must follow tax laws as well as follow the rules of their designation.
- Dependence – When you outsource your bookkeeping needs, you are place a lot of dependence and reliability on that firm to be there when you need them to be. You are also dependant on the firm’s integrity and solidity to be there in the future.
- Loyalty – When you contract a firm to do your bookkeeping, they may have several clients. They may even be working for your competition. You are dependent on them to keep confidentiality and loyalty to your firm and ensure all deadlines are met.
