Gone are the days when a bookkeeper’s role was only to process invoices and reconcile the bank account. The accounting and bookkeeping industry is constantly being disrupted by improvements in technology. Keeping up with changes in your own industry is difficult enough – how do you know if your finance and administration is realising the benefits that technology brings?
Below is a short list of key things your bookkeeper should be doing for you – is yours?
A fabulous bookkeeper should : –
- Be savvy enough to understand your business and what drives it. They should be able to alert you to concerns in order to prevent real issues eventuating. This person must be able to speak your language and interpret the numbers for you so that you can reconcile what you know from day to day business operations to the story that your numbers tell you.
- Free you up so you can focus on your business. You don’t need to think about how your revenue and expense items are classified – you just need to know what those numbers are or the net result.
- Be able to manage your day to day cashflow. Technology has brought us more ways to get paid than ever before – does your business have the best payment options in place? Management of paying your staff, suppliers and the tax man – should be authorised by you as the business owner, but the activity of what to pay and when should be managed by your bookkeeper.
- Provide accurate and timely processing of data. Yes this is still important. Without this your reports which facilitate key business decisions might be inaccurate. However the key point here is that there are many tools in the marketplace that automate this processing of data. Whether it is invoice processing, payroll processing or bank reconciliations – your bookkeeper should be actively reviewing this new technology and seeing if it can improve processing efficiencies in your business.
- Be aware of the rules and regulations that you are obliged to meet as a business owner, and to make sure that you meet them. Awareness of key dates in your industry is also a must.
Overall a fabulous bookkeeper will make business easier, simpler and smarter for you!
