Small Business Solutions

How to appoint your Bookkeeper or Outsource book-keeping

Book-keeping is outside of majority of business people’s comfort zone, there is a considerable positive attraction in getting someone to deal with this time consuming, tedious and mysterious side of their business. But how do you assess if they are likely to perform well, or make a complete hash of all your records.

• How do you pick your book-keeper or decide on complete outsourcing?
• Are they familiar with your kind of business?
• Are they experienced in their craft and able to give you any references?
• Do they have the technical ability to reconstruct the records in case you loose them due to hard drive crash or some physical damage
• Are they answerable to a professional body?
• If they take your records away to deal with – what guarantees do they offer about security and return of the documents?
• If they take your records away to deal with – do they outsource it to someone else or have inhouse staff who is properly trained
• Do they dictate what form your bookkeeping should take, or what package they insist on using?
• Do they have access to fully qualified accountants to answer questions if they get stuck on some technical points?
• Will they start from today, or will they go back to the start of your current financial year and bring your records up to date first?
• Will you be able to get the reports you need from them on a timely basis?
• Are they prepared to put their name to your IRS Return and sign it as a responsible official?