30 Questions to Ask a Bookkeeper Before You Hire Part I

Make sure that you get the best out of your business by hiring a bookkeeper to help you along your journey. They save you time by handling all the daily financial work for you and allow you to concentrate on the running of your business. The real-time information they collect can help them offer you new insight into your business. For your business to run smoothly, ideally you need both nonprofit bookkeeper vs accountant who should you hire people. And you’d hire an accountant to handle official reporting and high level business advice.

1. The challenge is identifying which bookkeepers you can trust with your finances before you actually formalize your relationship.
2. Meaning that, if you’re doing your bookkeeping on your home computer, there’s a good chance someone else has (or will eventually have) access to your business’s financial info.
3. Accountants use the records a bookkeeper provides and their own expertise to help build budgets, assess finances, and make business decisions.

Stress Reduction: Alleviating Bookkeeping Burden

Use one of our recommended background check companies to make the process easier. If you opt to hire a bookkeeping employee and want more in-depth tips, check out our guide to hiring employees. Evaluate the candidate’s proficiency in accounting software, such as QuickBooks, Xero, or other relevant platforms. Check their knowledge of Microsoft Excel and other software tools commonly used in bookkeeping.

Can a bookkeeper also do my tax returns?

With all of these factors in mind, you’ll be ready to dive into your bookkeeper search and feel more confident knowing what’s right for you and your business. Read on to learn how to hire a bookkeeper, tips and questions to ask, and the benefits of handing over the work to the pros. Meanwhile, here are answers to some questions you might have about how to hire a bookkeeper for your company.Let Robert Half help you hire your next bookkeeper. Accurate bookkeeping is essential to any successful business. If bookkeeping is not handled effectively, receipts and paperwork will pile up. You also want to be states with the lowest taxes and the highest taxes sure that your bookkeeper has experience with the recordkeeping system and software your organization uses, or you’ll need to provide training.

Company

The annual salary of a full-time bookkeeper, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), averaged about $45,000 in 2022. According to BLS data, bookkeeper salaries range from as low as about $30,000 to over $65,000. Although these are fairly wide ranges, they can be narrowed down based on your industry, the experience of the bookkeeper, the nuances of your business, and your company location. Some bookkeepers do provide tax preparation services, but usually, they’ll be doing it from their own experience, as not all bookkeepers are professional tax advisors. Bookkeeping covers many different industries, so it’s important to make sure that the person you hire is familiar with the industry your business operates in. Look into the industry-specific expertise they have to get a better idea.

Types of bookkeeping

Let’s explore what bookkeepers do, some of the benefits of bookkeeping, and your options for using a bookkeeper. Having one on site makes it easier to exchange information and ask questions, but it also eats up office space. Establish where and when the work is performed, plus how you prefer to exchange information.

Your business is growing, you have an ambitious agenda, and professional bookkeeping service you’re ready to reach the next level. As businesses evolve their accounting responsibilities become more complex and time-consuming. Ambitious companies end up spending a lot more time and focus on accounting when they would rather concentrate on core skills and long-term goals instead. Partnering with an outsourced bookkeeper empowers these companies to hand off routine workloads while getting strategic insights from a trusted expert. Many small businesses start out by outsourcing bookkeeping services, but depending on your needs, you may also consider hiring a full time bookkeeper as an employee at your business.

A remote bookkeeping service may use a custom app—as Bench does—that lets you message your bookkeeper directly. Since some bookkeeping firms also employ accountants, they may be able to handle your tax filing—and other accountant duties—in-house. Typically, it’s more expensive to hire a firm than a freelance bookkeeper, since firms have higher overhead to cover.