Traditional Bookkeeping
Many Small Business Owners Hate Bookkeping and Tax Duties.
According to
Score.org
, 40 percent of small business owners say bookkeeping and taxes are the worst part of owning a business. How
do you avoid this? Hire an in-house bookkeeper, which can be extremely advantageous for a company. Having a
daily meeting with a bookkeeper allows you to visualize the state of your company’s finances and can
influence the decisions you make on a day-to-day basis. This can help with setting sales goals, analyzing
how many clients you have and identifying financial trends. Although it may prove costly, many business
owners pay the cost since they understand how much value a bookkeeper can bring to a company.
Here's How the Numbers Break Down:
According to data presented visually in the infographic, the majority of small business owners spend more
than 41 hours on tax preparation each year. The breakdown of responses reveals that of the small business
owners surveyed,
- 40% spend 80+ hours/year
- 18% spend 41-80 hours/year
- 15% spend 21-40 hours/year
- 28% Spend <21 hours/year
The annual monetary costs of the administration of taxes, internal costs, legal fees, etc. can be
substantial as well, with the majority spending at least $1,000. Of the small
business owners surveyed,
- 23% spend $1,000 or less
- 31% spend $1,000 to $5,000
- 18% spend $5,000 to $10,000
- 12% spend $10,000 to $20,000
- 16% spend $20,000 or more
The Worst Part of Business Ownership
Perhaps unsurprisingly, 40% of small business owners say bookkeeping and taxes are the worst part of
owning a business. Specifically:
- 47% dislike the financial cost
- 13% dislike administrative headaches and time
- 13% dislike the complexity of compliance
- 10% dislike changing regulations and confusion
- 8% dislike all the paperwork
- 8% dislike inequity of the tax code
Costs of Maintaining Payroll
Many small businesses choose to perform payroll duties in-house in order to keep costs down. Of those small
business owners that do,
- 21% spend no time at all
- 26% spend 1-2 hours/month
- 26% spend 3-5 hours/month
- 17% spend 6-10 hours/month
- 11% spend 10+ hours/month
And payroll costs vary greatly from 8% paying less than $50/month to 5%
paying $5,000+/month.
How Nugent & Associates' Bookkeeping Service Benefits Your Business
There is a subtext here that we haven’t yet discussed and it’s important that we do. Because while every
task the bookkeeping service completes is vital to the financial health of your business, it’s the
underlying structure they apply that really makes a difference. You see, bookkeeping services implement—and
maintain—a consistent financial process that strengthens the health of your company and helps to create and
encourage uniformity in tracking, paying and reporting. The value of this is immeasurable as it insulates
your business from many costly and dangerous risks.
Part of the benefit of the process comes into play when the full-charge bookkeeper coordinates with members
of management from other departments in order to approve purchases and gather expense reports. Not only does
activity this require extreme organizational, management and math skills, but a bookkeeper must also have
people skills in order to make this work.
The team also works to reduce your overall expenses. Not only do they ensure that books are maintained
properly to avoid costly mistakes, fees, and penalties, but they can also help alert you to waste and
mismanagement of supplies and inventory. All while saving you time since you will no longer need to try and
perform these tasks yourself.
There’s no question that a bookkeeping service saves your business both time and money, but the processes
and consistency introduced by one can increase the longevity and efficiency of your business, making you
more profitable for decades to come.
We Can Do It All for You!
Nugent & Associates' experienced staff of bookkeepers, accountants and CPAs are more than able to asist
your
business with whatever aspect of your company's bookkeeping needs that you prefer not to do ourself. We fill
the void
so you can spend more time growing your business and spending time with your family.
Contact us tooday to set up a free and no obligation meeting to discuss how we can lighten that dreaded load
of
bookkeeping duties from your daily schedule.
What Is Virtual Bookkeeping?
Virtual bookkeeping allows Nugent & Associates to provide accounting services for our client
remotely. Telecommuting positions are becoming more common as businesses seek creative ways to find a
balance between staffing arrangements and workloads. A virtual bookkeeping arrangement can be
beneficial to both the business and the bookkeeper in terms of flexibility and cost.
Virtual Bookkeeping Defined
Virtual bookkeeping allows a Nugent & Associates' bookkeepers to telecommute instead of physically working at a client’s
office. Aside from the work location, there is not much difference between regular bookkeeping
services and a virtual arrangement. Nugent & Associates uses computerized bookkeeping software to
post financial transactions, review and update statements and reconcile accounts.
How It Works
To enable virtual bookkeeping, the business grants the Nugent & Associates remote access to its server,
software and financial documents. Our bookkeepers sign onto the company’s secure network remotely and
accesses the documents just as we would if logged onto an on-site company computer and
installs the company’s bookkeeping software onto our computers.
If a traditional bookkeeper is employed in your company, he/she will be paid according to the employer’s payroll
policies and cycle in additional to you being required to pay employer payroll taxes, and quite possibly
health insurance and pension contributions if your company has such plans. But as Nugent & Associates would be
working for you as an independent contractor, you do not have to pay for our staff's healht insurane or any type of retirement plan.
Employer Benefits
A virtual bookkeeper may be appealing to a company because of the cost savings and flexibility
associated with this arrangement. Virtual bookkeepers do not require office space or supplies, and
those working as contractors require no insurance, benefits or employment taxes -- a huge savings for
the employer. Virtual bookkeepers offer flexible availability and can work as little or as much as the
business needs; this can be especially beneficial for small businesses that may not need a full-time
on-site bookkeeper or whose financial services needs fluctuate.
