As you grow, having a professional, outsourced accountant on your side gives you enrolled agent ea definition the advantage of proactivity rather than reactivity. Trained accountants can spot red flags ahead of time and notify you about things like cash flow discrepancies. We give you a team of bookkeepers, and simple software to track your finances. We’ll reconcile and categorize your transactions, give you monthly financial statements, and put you in direct touch with your new bookkeeper through our messaging app.

What does an outsourced bookkeeper do?

Having a virtual bookkeeper means that someone else does the books on your behalf online. Freelance bookkeepers collaborate one-on-one when it comes to bookkeeping and accounting needs. You can hire local bookkeepers or a bookkeeping team located near your company. The main benefits of such an approach include meeting with the bookkeeper face to face, using physical records, and how to start a bookkeeping business in 9 steps relying less on online payment and banking systems. Many business owners hire full-time in-house bookkeepers, but this isn’t the most cost-effective solution.

In this article, we’ve compiled a list of 7 leading brands in this category. When you outsource your bookkeeping, you take a lot of weight off your shoulders. You can hire a freelance bookkeeper, a local bookkeeper, or an accounting firm to handle your bookkeeping needs. It’s not always easy to find an outsourced bookkeeping service that works. Examine your choices and look for a company that uses a bookkeeping software you’re familiar with, has positive user reviews, and has worked in the field for some time now. Bookkeeper360 offers a pay-as-you-go plan that costs $125 per hour of on-demand bookkeeping support.

Top trends in finance and accounting outsourcing

And the Executive plan, which is built for larger companies that need CFO services, has custom pricing. Outsourcing is a tried and tested resourcing strategy that typically sees businesses identify repetitive and time-consuming tasks and assign them to third-party team members in another location. With many aspects of finance and accounting fitting the bill as transactional and/or rules-based, such jobs lend themselves to outsourcing and, in turn, ease the pressure on small and medium-sized businesses. When you outsource, you’re tapping into decades of experience and expertise across multiple facets of accounting. This ensures you’re getting the best support and advice on a range of financial matters, from tax planning to financial forecasting and budgeting.

It’s important to ensure the firm is reputable, with excellent cybersecurity measures in place. Another major risk is receiving low-quality accounting and bookkeeping services, an issue that can be mitigated by using a local or well-established accounting and finance team. Rather than keeping an in-house accounting department on staff, consider utilising one of the FreshBooks plans available to you.

Merritt Bookkeeping: Most affordable bookkeeping service

There are many signs that you need to hire a bookkeeper, and only you will know for sure when it’s time to outsource your bookkeeping. Beyond day-to-day operations, having your bookkeeping taken care of by a professional getting team buy-in for budget season expedites the tax filing process. You’ll have all the numbers you need to fill out the forms quickly with IRS-compliant reports for your tax return.

Firms and freelancers can be local or virtual, though most bookkeeping firms will opt for a virtual system over a physical one. First, local bookkeeping is usually done with pen and paper, while virtual bookkeeping takes this service into the digital realm. Sometimes cost can be a barrier to entry, even for solutions that specifically target clientele with tight budgets. At some point, though, just about anything is better than a sterile spreadsheet and often the most cash-strapped businesses need the most help to resolve that issue. With the current economic environment as uncertain as it is, small businesses have often found themselves stretched thin just to keep afloat.

Bookkeeper.com manages your accounts using QuickBooks Online (or QuickBooks Desktop, if you prefer). Plus, not every online bookkeeping service works with both accrual-basis and cash-basis accounting—but Bookkeeper.com does. Virtual, outsourced, and online are often used interchangeably when referring to bookkeeping and accounting. However, a virtual bookkeeper or virtual accountant can sometimes refer to accountants or CPAs who work out of their homes and contract out their services individually. In contrast, outsourced bookkeeping and accounting nearly always refers to accountants with an accounting firm who handle your books from their own office.

1. When you outsource your accounting responsibilities, you can significantly reduce what you would otherwise be paying.
2. The virtual bookkeeper downloads your expenses through your online banking records and merchant processor, so there’s no need to send any receipt envelopes.
3. You have to enter more information about your needs to get a quote—which is useful if you want truly customized services but unhelpful if you’d rather choose a basic plan out of a lineup.
4. You can focus on growing your business and making data-driven decisions while your outsourced team handles your every accounting need.
5. Using a professional external accountant rather than hiring a part-time or full-time accountant onto your team and potentially can save you thousands per year.

The Premium plan ($399 a month if billed annually or $499 billed monthly) adds tax advising services, end-of-year tax filing, and financial strategy planning. But there’s more than one virtual accounting company in the world, and solutions range from on-demand CFO services to simple pay-by-the-hour book balancing. Below, we review the best virtual and outsourced accounting services for small-business owners like you.

When you outsource bookkeeping, you will save valuable time that can be put back into improving your business in other ways. Plus, full-time bookkeepers are experts in the field that can generate more thorough reports and documents that take some pressure off your back once tax season hits. Many accountants offer bookkeeping as part of their accounting services or are willing to get you caught up before tax season. But the catch is that a CPA will generally charge more per hour than a bookkeeper would.