Let’s face it… Bookkeeping gets a bad rap… It is generally seen as being arduous, tedious and just plain boring! It is mostly a topic that business owners tend to avoid. Well, they would be forgiven for finding it more exciting to focus on growing their business rather than thinking about all the nitty gritty details of where their money is going.
What a lot of people neglect to realise is that bookkeeping/accounting is the LANGUAGE OF MONEY. If you understand this language, you may well be able to find ways of making or saving some bucks!
Now, of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to do your bookkeeping yourself. Bookkeepers, like the SYM Dream Team, have the relevant professional training and experience in order to do this for you. You could spare yourself a lot of headaches and frustration if you engage a bookkeeper for the less pleasant side of your business. More often than not, bookkeepers actually enjoy crunching numbers!
So, how can you make bookkeeping less boring and get a bit more excited about all these numbers and reports? Perhaps you can look at it as if it were a hunt for treasure. Who wouldn’t get excited about digging somewhere and actually finding some hard earned moolah!
This is where your bookkeeper’s efforts of data entry and financial reporting come in very handy. It provides you with an up to date overview of the state of your business finances, ready to be reviewed when you need to make those all important business decisions.
If the thought of making or saving some dollars thrills you, perhaps bookkeeping can end up causing you some excitement after all!
Here are 5 reasons why bookkeeping is NOT boring:
1. Bookkeeping helps you manage cash flow efficiently
Moving money around at the eleventh hour can cause a lot of unnecessary stress.
Accurate financial reports, provided by your bookkeeper, will help you identify potential cash flow troubles. It will give you the time needed to plan for and rectify them and can help you avoid unexpected interest charges or penalties.
2. Bookkeeping helps you identify wasteful spending
Up-to-date and accurate books will enable you to see where your money is being spent on a monthly basis, allowing you to find ways to save it! Wasteful or uneconomical spending can happen easily and can be even more easily missed if your spending is not monitored or checked regularly – making financial reports particularly useful.
“Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.” – Benjamin Franklin
Click here for tips on how to reduce ongoing business expenses.
3. Bookkeeping helps you keep an eye on your debtors
Do you know who owes your business money? Keeping track of your debtors through financial reporting is a vital part of managing your business. Following up on them may not be the most fun part though. If you are shying away from dealing with your debtors, this is also a service that some bookkeepers, including SYM, would happily take off your hands.
Click here to see how you can make it easy for your customers to pay you.
4. Bookkeeping helps you pinpoint underperforming assets
Detailed financial reports prepared by your bookkeeper will tell you if you have an asset which is not pulling its weight. Once the problem asset is fixed or sold and replaced with a better performing one, your income will increase.
5. Bookkeeping makes tax time less painful
A good bookkeeper will make your accountant love you, come tax time! If your books are up to date and you’re able to provide your accountant with the relevant financial reports required, their job of completing your tax return will become much simpler and quicker (potentially saving you money in accounting fees!)
To summarise, good bookkeeping and accurate financial reports are essential if you want your business to succeed and grow. Bookkeeping may appear boring to those who don’t understand the benefits of it. Once you do realise that you could make and keep more money with the help of a bookkeeper, it may not seem so boring after all!
At SYM, we collaborate with business owners and their accountants by taking away the day to day headaches of small business compliance. If this excites you even a little bit, be sure to contact our Dream Team today!
