subject: Small Business Accounting – The Pros And Cons Of Outsourcing [print this page] Small Business Accounting The Pros And Cons Of Outsourcing
Small business accounting is often viewed by the business owner as simply a necessary evil. The owner who does his own accounting would prefer to spend the time spent on bookkeeping be spent on things that he does best like product development and marketing. However accounting is not only a necessary evil required by the government to determine taxes due, but it is an essential management tool that can be used to judge the financial health of the company.
The question is how you find a mix of time that best makes since for your business. How can you balance the value of the time spent on bookkeeping versus the value of time spent on other revenue generating projects. There won't be any single solution that fits all operations but there are mixes that are available to everyone.
Probably the most common solution for a small business is buying a bookkeeping software and doing it your self. This is a great idea if you use an accountant to help you set up the accounts that you will be using. The chart of accounts is the document that drives all of the classifications of income and expense and can be overwhelming for an owner with no prior experience. Using an accountant to set this up makes the rest of the tasks simple and accurate.
Outsourcing a part of the accounting is another option. For example payroll can become a complicated task that has to be performed on time consistently. Hiring a payroll service to do the calculations and cut the checks can insure accuracy and save a ton of time. In addition they can do year end tax forms as well.
These are just two options to set up small business accounting. There are dozens more involving outsourcing and in house operations that you should explore.
