Should you hire a bookkeeper, or keep doing your own business bookkeeping — even though you don’t really have the time or the know-how? If you’re honest with yourself, doing your own books probably stresses you out. It’s not something you have the mental capacity for right now, and it’s definitely not something you want to do. That’s exactly why hiring a bookkeeper can be one of the best moves for your business.
But what should you expect when you hire a bookkeeper for the first time? Here’s a clear picture of how it actually works, so nothing catches you off guard.
Your bookkeeper will request access to your financial accounts
Bookkeeping can’t happen without access to your financial information. Your bookkeeper will need access to your bank account (most banks let you create read-only access), plus anything else you use to spend and receive money — credit cards, PayPal, Stripe, Square, and so on.
Trust naturally comes up here, because you’re giving someone access to your money. I always include a clause about the ethics of that access in my contracts, and I tell every client plainly: I don’t care about your money enough to do anything with it — I have my own. That’s a reasonable expectation to hold any bookkeeper to.
Also keep it in perspective: you already give your virtual assistant access to set up payment methods and sales pages. Account access for your bookkeeper is the same kind of trust. The only alternative is making sure everything downloads into your bookkeeping program (QuickBooks, FreshBooks, etc.), keeping those logins current, and downloading the monthly transaction detail for your bookkeeper yourself every month — at which point you might as well do the bookkeeping yourself.
Your financial life gets easier — especially at tax time
The whole point of hiring a bookkeeper is to make the financial side of your business easier. No more scrambling to pull the right documents together at tax time — and tax time is stressful enough on its own.
Every year, countless entrepreneurs wait until the deadline to get everything together, and it makes me want to bang my head against the wall. If you don’t have the time or knowledge to do your books, hire someone who does — and hire them to work with you all year long. Don’t wait until January, February, or March of filing season; last-minute catch-up costs far more than staying current does.
You’ll be in a better position to analyze your finances
As a business owner, you should be regularly analyzing what comes in and what goes out. When you hire a bookkeeper, that gets easier because your reports are prepared for you — and you can ask your bookkeeper to help you interpret them. Regular analysis helps you answer questions like:
- Where are you spending money you don’t need to?
- What are you paying for but not using?
- What are your best-selling products, courses, and services?
- What actually makes you the most money — and what doesn’t?
- Which purchases genuinely help you earn more?
This kind of review is a core part of running a business and knowing how well it’s really performing.
You’ll get something stressful off your plate
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if bookkeeping stresses you out, get it off your plate. Doing tasks that are stressful and hard for you drags down your overall business performance (ask me how I know). There’s no reason to wait until tax time — bookkeeping should be done year-round. Let someone handle the part that isn’t in your wheelhouse and that’s quietly holding your business back.
You’ll be able to grow your business faster
When you take stressful tasks off your plate and consistently analyze your finances, you find new ways to grow and make more money. And who wouldn’t want to hire someone who helps the business earn more? Your business is one big experiment in finding what works — but you can’t find what works without regular analysis, and you can’t analyze without keeping your books current.
The bottom line on hiring a bookkeeper
The ROI of hiring a bookkeeper is real. They’ll do most of the work, though you’ll still want to do some analysis yourself — and they can help with that too. For most owners, bookkeeping is the part of business that makes them bury their head in the sand. Stop being that person and get the help you need. Just make sure you hire the right person — someone who genuinely understands online business. Do yourself a favor: hire a bookkeeper and grow your business faster.
This article is for general educational purposes only and is not legal, accounting, or tax advice. Always consult a qualified professional about your specific situation.