Hello and welcome to another episode of always up to date. Uh, I’m Denise and this is Yahweh and we’re with always Edmonton Bookkeeping. Uh, today our topic is what to look for in a bookkeeper. Uh, so as you know, we always give you a quote, tennis statistic and a story of, um, perhaps a story that we’ve come across in our experience. And so, um, our quote today, again from Jim Collins, the author of six books, uh, and his quote is those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets or technology or competition or products. It is one thing above all others, the ability to get and keep enough of the right people. Uh, so our statistic today is that 50% of Canadian businesses fail and only 11 seek professional help. Now, may, do you have a story that you could share with us about, uh, something from your experience?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Most of the clients that come in here, um, and this is very common, um, a lot of people try to save on, um, their accounting services, um, by hiring. The more, uh, or cheaper bookkeepers, um, for, for example, from could you T and then they would have the problem off trying to get in contact with them when they need the reports. Um, they’ll get a lot of excuses for not having the reports that, uh, my dog died, somebody, somebody else, something else happened. And then you left with a very little amount of time before when you needed the reports for and not enough time to make enough rec decisions. Yeah. Yeah. So I, um, I have some questions here that you want to ask yourself when you’re looking for a bookkeeper. And first, uh, first of all, a visit back bookkeeper costs you money.

Oh yeah. Bad book keeper can definitely cost you money. Uh, you, you may think that you’re saving money by going with somebody that’s cheaper, but like you said in your story, y’all wait, um, you know, you hire them and then they leave or there you can get in touch with them and, um, they give you your, um, information when you, you know, they finally give it to you and, uh, it’s all wrong. Or, um, you know, it’s, it’s been entered incorrectly. Um, it doesn’t maybe have all of the information that’s required. Um, they didn’t really know what they were doing, so they just put it in whatever account they wanted to put it in. So then you take it to your accountant to do the year end and they really have to do Edmonton Bookkeeping all over again. So your accountant is gonna charge you to do that.

So now you’ve paid a really bad bookkeeper to do work that your accountant is going to charge you to do over again. So, yeah, for sure. If you cost me money, yeah. Plus not only that, but, um, you get these reports from the bookkeeper and think that you’re, um, you’re in a good position in your company and you can afford to maybe purchase a new piece of equipment or hire a new staff member or, you know, give out bonuses, whatever it might be. And really with a bad bookkeeper that hasn’t done the proper reports, has an enter the information correctly, you may spend money that you don’t actually have. Um, how can the hourly rate of your bookkeeper affect your cashflow? Yeah. Again, um, with bookkeepers, if you’re, they’re charging you by the hour. Uh, I mean, yeah, by the hour, sorry. Depending on how much work they have to catch up on.

Um, we had a video, our first one that we did, um, we talked about how keeping your records organized will help that. Um, so the bookkeepers that are charging you hourly, it’s gonna cost more if you have, um, like again, thousands of transactions, maybe in a month, maybe you do so much. Um, internet banking, you just like every day you’re doing lots of, it’s gonna cost a lot more. Um, and always Edmonton Bookkeeping. We charge a monthly rate, uh, so it doesn’t matter how many transactions you have in a month. Um, we’re gonna charge you the same amount if you have 10 transactions or a thousand transactions. So each month you know exactly how much you’re gonna have to pay.

Yeah. And it’s more spread out through your, um, uh, fiscal year, right. As opposed to, let’s say you needed the bookkeeping. And, uh, going back to my story again, it’s like you haven’t seen this, um, this guy or this lady for six months and suddenly you have this huge hourly bill that was going to be given to you after they’ve done all the reports and they will require that payments really soon. Right? So that kind of cost would, will really impact you, especially if you’re doing, um, if you’re trying to budget monthly. Right. Um, so how can bad information lead you to make bad decisions?

Yeah, like we talked about it. If the reports that your bookkeeper gives you are incorrect, you’re gonna maybe make some decisions that, um, again, whether it’s buying a piece of equipment, um, hiring or firing a staff member, um, whatever it might be. If your records aren’t correct, you’re going to make those decisions and then you’re going to find out that that was a bad decision to me.and I’m tying back to the, uh, to our story. Um, you haven’t seen this lady for six months and she probably would not know some of the transactions that happen and we’d just, um, do assumptions or choose her own assumptions based on what she has. Right. Um, you can have, um, a lot of unclassified transactions just hiding in your, um, reports that may not meet or may not be, um, pointed out. Right. So, um, is the Edmonton Bookkeeping industry highly regulated?

No, not really. Uh, so you know, of course what keepers need to adhere to the law, right? Um, but there is no governing body. Um, pretty much anybody can be a bookkeeper. They really just need to know the software and, and maybe a, um, general idea of math and they can, they can call themselves a bookkeeper, um, here at always Edmonton Bookkeeping.

Um, the team that we have have all worked in um, public accounting offices and um, lots of the staff are getting their CPA. So, um, they have the experience behind them. Um, they know what it is to give an income statement and a, a balance sheet to, you know, kind of where those transactions need to go. They know the questions that need to be asked for those major decisions that are going to be made by the clients. Um, what qualification this year bookkeeper need to have.

Again, your bookkeeper really doesn’t need to have any qualifications, um, to call themselves a bookkeeper. Um, we would highly recommend that you have a bookkeeper that knows, um, a little bit about accounting. They know how to work the software, the, um, the bookkeeping software. Um, and I think that, uh, they need to know the questions to ask the right questions to ask
and um, being experienced. Um, yeah, having good experience, um, in public, in a public accounting industry would be really helpful. Yeah. That’s great. Um,how often do you need to speak with your bookkeeper? Yeah, so, um, I dunno if there’s any really set, um, time that you should talk to your bookkeeper. Um, and always book keeping. We really recommend biweekly. Um, we do, um, the Edmonton Bookkeeping biweekly for our clients. We send them reports, we call them and go over the reports with them.