In my last blog I said that among the 7 traits of entrepreneurs, handling their own books wasn’t one of them! This month, I take a closer look at small business owners who run their business on a shoestring, so may be having a hard time deciding whether or not to hire a bookkeeper or accountant — after all, most entrepreneurs are driven to do it all and would rather pay $24 per month for QuickBooks than hire financial help. Unfortunately, we often get what we pay for.
While most business owners can handle the software, it does take their focus away from their business. Those who do eventually hire accounting help discover too late that the business wasn’t doing nearly as well as they thought.
Financial decisions are critical throughout the year, but are intense in the months just before tax time. In late-February through mid-March, small business owners often email to their trusty tax accountant their QuickBooks summary for the year. Then they cross their fingers. For most tax accountants, the job is to prepare the tax forms, not to perform audits on every entry in QuickBooks. And neither is tax time when you want to find out that payroll taxes weren’t filed on time, or that your books are unusable.
There’s nothing like a happy tax accountant who just received a correct and complete QuickBooks file from a smart business owner. It’s likely to happen when a bookkeeping service like DL MoneyMatters performs the day-to-day hands-on tasks of filing paperwork, sending out and paying invoices on time, tracking expenses and recording every dollar in and out.
If you are a small business owner who runs their business on a shoestring, or you know someone who is, we’d like the opportunity to have a conversation. We hope you will refer us.
