Business owners know that small business accounting tasks are a necessary evil. Most business owners would rather spend their time marketing and working on product development than doing accounting. The duties of small business accounting take much needed time away from sales calls, brand promotion, PR, and operations. However, since the government requires business owners to determine taxes due, business owners do what they must, spending hours and hours on accounting. It is vital that everything is done so that the accounting data can be used as a management tool to show the financial health of their business.
So, the situation boils down to the question of “How do I spend the right amount of time on accounting at my company – what makes the best sense for my business?” In other words, how should the value of time spent on accounting tasks measure up to the value of hours spent on revenue generating projects? While there is not a standard one size fit all solution, there are options that will work for everyone.
Using Software
One of the solutions most business owners use is bookkeeping software so they can do accounting themselves. This does work if your company already uses an accountant that can help set up all the different accounts. The document named the “Chart of Accounts” is what drives all classifications of expense and income, and it can pose to be a formidable document for a business owner with no prior experience with it, or other tasks in accounting. If you use an accountant to help with all of these setup tasks, then the rest will be accurate and simple.
Outsourcing Accounting
Another option is outsourcing the small business accounting tasks. One is payroll; a complicated, time consuming task that has to be done consistently. Between the calculations, taxes, and other elements to payroll, the job must be done accurately and always on time. Outsourcing payroll service to eliminate the headaches of the calculations and checks will not only ensure accuracy, but will save a ton of time for business owners. An advantage here is that they can also complete your year-end tax forms for you.
Invoicing is another job that often requires hiring of a full time employee especially if your company generates a high number of invoices. If your company generates numerous weekly invoices, then you can outsource it as well. Administrative tasks are something that can easily be outsourced because of the advances and techniques in administration. Someone that has experience with these tasks can complete them more quickly than a business owner that has never done any of them before, and spends much longer on the same tasks. In fact, the software available to bookkeepers and accounting services offers customized services so you can get back to your customers and making sales calls.
These are just a few of options for accounting for small business. There are many other outsourcing solutions that you might explore before you sit down for another week of grueling bookkeeping tasks. When you spend time to find what works for your business, you can focus on other goals for your company. For example – get back to marketing email campaigns and tracking customer responses.
If you are looking for for small business accounting solutions, find a firm that can meet all your needs on budget!
This article was written by Collin Pausch, who feels that outsourcing accounting for small business enables you to focus on your vision for your small business.