Vancouver businesses are looking for ways to make their businesses more profitable and efficient. Outsourcing specialized tasks such as bookkeeping can help ensure accurate books, reduce your costs, and free up valuable time for business owners to focus on important tasks. Let’s take a look at why you should outsource bookkeeping.
Reduce Staffing Costs
Outsourcing your bookkeeping can be a great way to reduce costs. Having an accountant or bookkeeper on staff can be expensive. In Vancouver, the average bookkeeper makes approximately $20 an hour. In addition to salary, you also have to pay for payroll taxes, benefits, and other items such as computer equipment. Even a part-time bookkeeper can be more expensive than outsourcing to a professional bookkeeping firm.
Eliminate Costly Mistakes
Mistakes can cost your company a lot of money. Improper bookkeeping can increase your risk of late fees for past due invoices and additional interest charges. If books are not kept up-to-date, the company could lose track of financial performance and result in cash flow issues. A professional bookkeeper will also help you determine your tax liability to avoid accidentally under or over-paying. This will help you avoid unnecessary fines or large tax bills.
Software Challenges
By keeping bookkeeping in-house, you will need to make sure that you have an accounting or bookkeeping system in place. This is just another system that your IT department must maintain. You will also need to provide training to any necessary employees. By outsourcing your bookkeeping to a professional, they will typically use their own system or program. Because they do this for a living, they likely have access to better quality tools and programs.
Burnout and Work-Life Balance
Small business owners don’t have the luxury of hiring a team of people to help with the administrative side of their business. Of all the necessary tasks, bookkeeping is one of the most rewarding to outsource. One survey indicated that half of all business owners found bookkeeping to be the task that they hated the most. Bookkeeping can be an extremely tedious task that requires a lot of time, especially when you are not an expert. Since the average business owner works over 50 hours a week, outsourcing this task gets you one step closer to a proper work-life balance.
Expert Advice and Third-Party Oversight
Bookkeeping can be a difficult task to learn for someone who doesn’t have an accounting background. By outsourcing your bookkeeping, you gain access to an expert who can help guide you and ensure that all your entries are documented correctly. If your company is a partnership or has several investors, an outside bookkeeper gives you the benefit of having a third-party manage your books. This can reduce the chances of frustration or animosity that can come from one partner having more control over the business finances than the others.
Tax and Audit Ready
There are two words that will make any business owner cringe – taxes and audits. Outsourcing your bookkeeping to a professional will help streamline your tax preparation process and make sure all the information you need is easy to find and readily available. Having organized books also helps in the event that your business gets audited.
Let Us Take Bookkeeping Off Your Plate
For over 30 years, the team at Valley Business Centre has been providing comprehensive accounting, bookkeeping, and tax services to our clients in Whistler, Squamish, the Sea to Sky Corridor, and metro Vancouver BC areas. Contact us today to learn how you can leverage our expert bookkeepers to support your business.
