What Makes A Good Bookkeeper?
An effective, motivated and skilled bookkeeper should do more than simply organize your books, and listed below are a few things to look out for when assessing your bookkeepers value: â—?
A good bookkeeper should really understand your business: Taking the time to discover how your business functions from every possible angle, helps a bookkeeper to make a series of simple and effective, operational processes. Understanding your business also helps them to see how it
could be streamlined, to save you money. If your bookkeeper isn’t making the effort to understand, then it may be that they are not suited for your business. �
They should be questioning you: The more questions that your bookkeeper can ask you, to ensure that he/she understands your business fully, the better. Guessing at things can lead to slip ups and incorrect decisions being made, so try to encourage your
bookkeeper to talk to you if they have any questions, concerns or ideas. Ideally, they will ask anyway, but a little encouragement from you, is never a bad thing. â—?
A good bookkeeper will communicate effectively with your accountant: Bookkeepers and accountants should be able to work harmoniously together, and if your bookkeeper is performing well, then they will be asking your accountant for advice wherever necessary.
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Research and up to date knowledge indicates how good your bookkeeper is: Rules, regulations and technology in the bookkeeping and accounting world, can be hard to keep up with when they change, or are updated, so frequently. However, any bookkeeper worth their salt will complete their own research to stay on top of recent changes to laws and technology, to ensure that they get the best results for you and your business, and they should also be helping you to understand the technology, too, so that you can use it yourself to save time and money.
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You should be able to trust them: It may sound a little obvious, but you should be able to trust your bookkeeper with your most intimate business data, and feel secure in the knowledge that they will not abuse that trust. Not only will they have access to your businesses financial information, but oftentimes they’ll see your personal accounts, too, especially if you’re using the same account for both.
Not only should you be able to trust your bookkeeper, but you should like them, too. You need to have a good working relationship with them, and feel comfortable enough to be completely honest, otherwise they won’t be able to work effectively in your businesses favour.
If your bookkeeper doesn’t tick all the above boxes, it may be time to consider hiring a new one. Your business is too important for you to risk its financial success, by working with a bookkeeper who doesn’t have your company’s best interests in mind, or who cannot give you the best results possible.
Miami Bookkeeping was founded with the purpose of helping small businesses outsource the time-consuming and tedious work known as bookkeeping. For more than 10 years, our company has been providing bookkeeping services in Miami and Coral Gables for hundreds of small businesses. If you are looking for bookkeeping in Miami or Coral Gables, contact us today at support@miamibookkeeping.com