6 Signs Your Bookkeeper is Not a Good Fit for Your Business
The Bookkeeper is one of the most important and underappreciated roles in a small business. This person’s skill and acumen can literally make or break a company’s financial future. We know, strong words; but we challenge any small business owner to debate us on a bookkeeper’s importance. Unfortunately, almost all of the bookkeeping clients who reach out to us Barta Business Group for guidance state the same six issues. To help small business owners, we have identified 6 signs your bookkeeper is not a good fit for your business.
The 6 Signs Your Bookkeeper is Not a Good Fit For Your Business
1. Lacking Clear and Consistent Communication.
How many business owners out there have been ‘ghosted’ by your bookkeeper, by not responding to emails or phone calls? Whether you have an in-house bookkeeper or an outsourced one, clear and consistent responsiveness to your questions is imperative. If you’re not getting this from your current bookkeeper and you’ve communicated your expectations to them, but still haven’t experienced an improvement, make the change.
2. Financial Reports Not Provided in a Timely and Consistent Schedule.
The industry standard for most small businesses is providing clean and accurate financial reports by the 15th of the month for the previous month. Based on your business needs and process, sometimes this deadline can be anywhere from the 7th to the 20th day of the month. Whatever the schedule, it should be a deadline a quality bookkeeper should meet, consistently every month.
3. Financial Information is Not Accurate.
The only thing worse than no information is bad information. The transactional quality of a bookkeeper’s work is the building blocks to any business’ financials. The first step is accurate coding of transactions. The next step is complete reconciliation of balance sheet accounts. The third step is review of the balance sheet and income statement for accuracy. Accurate and timely financial statements are the score cards for business owners to track progress and be able to make sound business decisions from.
4. Isn’t proactive with pointing out problems as they arise.
“Going through the motions” and “doing the bare essentials” doesn’t cut it in successful businesses. A great bookkeeper can point out issues as they occur for management make quick decisions in how to adapt. Yes, a great bookkeeper can be the ‘canary in the coal mine’ and save a business thousands of dollars if they are proactive and are acting in the best interest of the business. If you’re not getting this ‘extra set of eyes’ from your bookkeeper, make the change.
5. Protective or not efficient with their accounting processes.
A major red flag if your bookkeeper is costing your business money is them being protective of their record keeping or accounting processes. The most valuable bookkeeper is constantly finding ways to automate their processes and make it turnkey for mundane tasks to be executed. If you have a bookkeeper who is very resistant to giving management or ownership access to their record keep, be suspect and do a full audit of their work. I’ve found major mismanagement issues when this situation exists at a company. Trust your gut on this one, it’s rarely wrong.
6. Negative feedback from vendors, banks or clients.
Your business ecosystem is comprised of more than just your own employees. When you get feedback from outside sources that may appear in the form of bounced checks, bank fees for late payments or clients not being invoiced in a timely manner, listen to them. These transactional issues can mean a lack of knowledge, lack of efficiency or a neglect of duties. Communicate these issues promptly with your bookkeeper and if they can’t be resolved in a timely manner, make the change.
About Barta Business Group
If you need assistance in taking your bookkeeping functions to the next level, please Contact Us. We look forward to providing your business the service and attention it deserves.
Barta Business Group is a small business accounting and bookkeeping firm in Denver, CO serving the needs of small and medium sized businesses through the United States.