If you’re a business owner, there’s a significant probability that someone has recommended bookkeeping services to you. From the moment you start making sales and booking profits, people will recommend accounting and bookkeeping services to you to “safeguard your money.” Sometimes, you might not even know what this means.
It’s also possible for you to have ignored this advice thus far. However, this isn’t in your best interest. Bookkeeping and accounting services are incredibly important to any business, and you want to make sure that you’ve got what you need as you move forward. To help you out, we’ll be going deep into accounting and bookkeeping services and what they entail below:
What a Bookkeeping and Accounting Service Does
Primarily, a bookkeeping service looks into safeguarding your funds and protecting your financial interests. To do this, most of them use a three-pronged approach:
The Accountant
The first prong involves the accounting specialist themselves. This specialist will be responsible for creating a file that contains all of your accounting data. This way, their services can be tailored to meet your needs and bespoke to your requirements.
It is expected that the paystub maker will also provide you with access to the document, ensuring that you can view your financial position at any point. Remember to always demand full accountability from accounting services.
In some instances, companies will be able to hire more than one accountant to ensure financial compliance. While this isn’t a necessity, it always helps to make sure that each person’s work is reviewed and double-checked.
Also, some companies could get too big and would need to hire multiple accounting firms. Some of the names on the Fortune 500 list could have as many as five accounting firms on their payroll.
The Full-Service Bookkeeper
The next prong involves a full-charge bookkeeper. These professionals have a basic duty of tracking your receivables and payables and documenting your entire financial transactions. It might sound simple, but there’s some complexity to this that should be pointed out. A full-charge bookkeeper can also engage in several activities, including the following:
Deposit handling
When you make profits and would like to deposit some of your money in the bank, a full-charge bookkeeper can help make things much easier. Their connections with banking officials will go a long way in simplifying the deposit process.
Payroll management
Full-charge bookkeepers can also help you to manage your payroll. When you make new hires, they collect these workers’ bank account information. When it’s the salary period, the bookkeeper will ensure that your workers are paid and that other obligations are fulfilled.
Financial record planning and report documentation
Every company is required to keep financial records and file financial reports with their local authorities. Since they already hold details about your transactions, bookkeepers will be in the best position to help you compile
your reports and even file them. If you hire a bookkeeping and accounting agency, it is even much better for you.
Taxation and planning
In a world where tax laws change on a dime, a bookkeeper can help you maintain stability and weather the financial storm. Bookkeepers will be able to keep in tune with the changing taxation laws. Where they affect you, the bookkeeper will be able to provide information.
In some instances, bookkeepers can also help you to find the best ways to reduce your payable taxes. Remember that taxation requirements can vary, from monthly tax filings to quarterly and annual filings.
Bank statement reconciliation
Bookkeepers can also help you to reconcile your bank statements to all relevant internal accounts. In the case of an audit from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), they will be there to help you out.
All in all, a full-charge bookkeeper will come in handy no matter the financial need you have at the moment. Whether it’s answering a summons from an auditor (or the IRS), securing investment and loans, or building a budget for a financial period, the bookkeeper will be able to keep you afloat and make things much easier for you.
They ensure that these tasks are completed promptly and that they are accurate enough.
The Financial Controller
Between getting accounting services and hiring a bookkeeper, you will need to create some checks and balances in your company. Essentially, you want to ensure that all departments are doing well and that everyone’s needs are catered to. Also, you want to record and analyze the spending for each individual department.
The bookkeeper does this while also reviewing payables and receivables. From there, the company’s financial outlay is measured against its budget to curb inefficiencies and improve your overall financial health.
This is where you get the third prong – the job of the controller. Essentially, the financial controller improves financial accountability across the company. The controller also checks the bookkeeper’s ledger to ensure optimal accuracy and transparency while maintaining the integrity of all financial data that you provide.
With a financial controller around, departments that need to make changes to their budgets and spending forecasts will need to ratify these changes before they can be made to the overall budget. The controller’s job is to promote accountability and keep everyone within their means.
Lastly, the financial controller will issue monthly reports to highlight any problems that they notice with the company’s financials. Issues are brought to your table, and you will be able to address them when due.
