An extremely important decision that entrepreneurs need to make in their business, is what Edmonton bookkeeping company they are going to hire to work in their business. Often when an entrepreneur has decided to stop taking care of their own bookkeeping, they want to save as much money as possible and hire the least expensive bookkeeper they can find. This is a big mistake because well-done bookkeeping can help entrepreneurs grow their business, and have well-kept financial records. On the other hand, poor bookkeeping can cause entrepreneurs to make financial decisions that have a negative impact on their business by having not up-to-date or sloppily done financial statements. having their accountant fix poor bookkeeping can be more expensive in the long run then if entrepreneurs would have paid for a great bookkeeper first. Red Adair, specializes in extinguishing and capping oil well fires and he said, “if you think it is expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.”
There are several things that business owners should keep in mind when they set out to hire Edmonton bookkeeping company to take over the finances of their business, and that is they should hire someone that has a basic knowledge about taxes. It is extremely important that whoever they hire is able to not only calculate the right amount of all the various taxes that they have to pay but know exactly when to remit them. For example, if an entrepreneur has their bookkeeper working on payroll, they should know not only what taxes to withhold from the paychecks of their employees, but how much and when they need to have them remitted. Payroll taxes have a very steep interest rate if they are not paid on time, or if a business owner has underpaid them. They also need to know exactly what taxes to withhold, and that with payroll there is also a component that the business owner must pay as well.
It is also extremely important that there Edmonton bookkeeping company is familiar with paying taxes in the province of Alberta. The reason for this is because unlike other provinces the federal tax and provincial tax must be paid separately. In other provinces, they can send their provincial and federal taxes to Canada revenue agency, and they will send them onto the appropriate province, but in Alberta, this is not the case. Hiring an Edmonton bookkeeping company that knows to send provincial taxes directly to the Alberta government is extremely important.
When a business owner is hiring in Edmonton bookkeeping company to handle their business finances, they should ensure that the hiring company that is knowledgeable and will be able to help them avoid paying penalties. By doing what questions to ask, and finding at the level of experience that they have can help business owners figure out what is the best bookkeeper for their business, keeping in mind that they should avoid making their decision based on the price points of that bookkeeper.
Which Edmonton bookkeeping company to hire is an extremely important question that business owners should not take lightly. The role of a bookkeeper in a business is extremely important as they keep the entrepreneur organized, and in the know about what their business finances are. A great bookkeeper will help a business owner make the best financial decisions possible for their business, while a poor bookkeeper will cause problems, potentially cause an entrepreneur to make poor financial decisions that could put a financial strain on them, and at the very least because their finances to be disorganized and they have to pay additional fees to fix.
When hiring the right Edmonton bookkeeping company for their business, entrepreneurs should know what questions they want to ask so that they can ensure that the bookkeeper that there hiring can answer them to their satisfaction. One of the biggest challenges that entrepreneurs have when they are hiring a bookkeeping company, is that there is no professional designation or governing body when it comes to bookkeeping. Bookkeepers are not required to have a certain amount of experience, schooling or knowledge base before they call themselves a bookkeeper. That means that literally anybody who wants to can call themselves a bookkeeper and start getting clients. Therefore, business owners should ensure that they are asking the right questions to find out the experience level of that bookkeeper. If they simply hire the most inexpensive bookkeeper, they might find out too late that the only reason that bookkeeper was so inexpensive was because they were so inexperienced. The problems that could come up in business due to an inexperienced bookkeeper are so significant that an entrepreneur should not chance that happening in their business.
Some of the questions that business owners should keep in mind when interviewing potential Edmonton bookkeeping companies, is how much experience they have? Keeping in mind that experience level does not necessarily mean as much as what types of experience. For example, bookkeeper that says they have ten years of experience, but when that ten years of experience was working part-time out of their home for their husbands part-time business, that ten years of experience is not going to count as much as others. For example, if another Edmonton bookkeeping company says that they have only two years of experience, but that is to years of experience articling in a public accounting firm, that too years of experience is going to count for a lot. Business owners should be asking these bookkeeping companies not just how much experience they have, but with the nature of that is and if they have any schooling to back it up.
They should also find out if their bookkeeper knows what accrual accounting is, what a bank reconciliation is, and what shareholder loan accounts are. These are some very basic bookkeeping terms, and if a bookkeeper cannot answer those questions, they probably should not be working for a business as a bookkeeper. Even if an entrepreneur does not know exactly what they are, they will be able to tell if their bookkeeper can answer them intelligently or not.