Month: April 2016

Once you have decided that you need to use a bookkeeper you need to decide how much you are willing to pay for their services, so how much a professional bookkeeper should cost?

A lot depends on you, your business and the time you can allocate personally to doing the books.

You

Are you organised, methodical, and efficient in keeping at least your paperwork in some kind of organised structure? If so,  this will reflect in the cost.

For example if you keep all your receipts and invoices in a rough date order, maybe in an envelope for each month, and note on each receipt and invoice when and how it was paid this will help the bookkeeper.

Or, do you keep everything in the glove box of your van and empty it into a bag when its full, paying little attention to obtaining proper receipts for things like fuel, keeping only the credit /debit card slip?

This will increase the amount of time the bookkeeper needs to spend just on unfolding all the bits of paper and trying to match receipts /invoices with payments -and as every business person knows, time is money.

Your business

Does your business produce a lot of paperwork or very little?

Do you have a bank account that is used only for business transactions?

Do you pay for everything via the bank or are you heavily cash based.

How do you manage and account for cash?

Your time

Does the time you allocate to “doing the books” take you away from running the business or eat into your private family time. If this is the case how do you calculate that cost?

In essence a Bookkeeper will charge for the time taken doing the work. That could include collecting the records from you, unfolding all the receipts, organising the paperwork from the bag into some order and eventually using the information to record the financial transactions in the correct place. OR, it could be receiving a folder containing organised paperwork together with relevant bank statements and petty cash records and getting straight down to work.

At CC Associates we have a tried and tested system that we have used over many years. We sit down with you, either at your premises or ours and discuss your requirements. We then do a months bookkeeping for you from the paperwork you supply. We make suggestions as to how you could present the work differently if that is required and we give you a price based on actually doing your books. If you agree we have an ongoing partnership, if you want to walk away, just do so free of any charge. We believe it’s a good system and believe us when we tell you 99% of businesses stay with us.

So depending on you, your business, and the time you give to organising your paperwork, charges could be as little as £30 per month! Get in touch today if you would like one of our friendly team to give you a call or come to see you.

Tel: 01656 729488

Email [email protected]

Have you decided that instead of drowning in paperwork, you need to spend your time running your business and letting someone else take care of the back office side of things?

Have you realised how time consuming, and sometimes quite difficult, keeping on top of the financial paperwork of your business is?

The next thing you may wonder is what to look for when choosing a bookkeeper?

There are a lot of questions you may be asking yourself, so here are 5 tips to consider which will hopefully help you.

1. Make sure they are qualified and insured.

Many people say they are bookkeepers but have no professional qualifications.

Here at CC Associates you can be assured that we are all fully qualified and insured and you are in safe hands.

2. Get recommendations from other small business owners.

Choosing someone with no way of knowing what their work is like is a recipe for disaster.We have wonderful testimonials from our happy clients, and we are happy to provide excellent work references if you require.

3. Look for someone who has experience of your particular business.

It’s all very well hiring a great bookkeeper, but do they have experience in your specific  field?

We have helped hundreds of every kind of businesses you could think of over the last 30 years, so we have vital in-depth experience in many business areas. From plumbers  to hairdressers and pubs and restaurants to airline pilots and barristers, we have seen just about everything!

4. A bookkeeper needs to have the  knowledge and understanding to work with your accountant at year end.

Do they know what the accountant will need, how to present the information they have completed, and how to answer any queries that may come up?

If they don’t, and they provide things in the wrong way it could cause your accountant to charge you again to re-do work you already paid the bookkeeper to do.

At CC Associates, we can either do the work at year end for you as well, as we are accountants ourselves, or you can be sure that the work we pass to your accountant will be top rate and no further issues should come up that we can’t deal with.

5. Choose a Bookkeeper that has up to date knowledge of bookkeeping software and systems.

We are experts in all industry standard software that you may have already heard of, like Sage for example. We also have our own cloud bookkeeping software which is for exclusive use by our Clients.  If you would like a free trial of this, just let us know!

Bookkeepers should be accurate, efficient and knowledgeable. A bookkeeper’s role will be different depending on the size and type of your business.

Put simply – a good bookkeeper will accurately maintain the financial records for your business in an efficient manner in a way that you may not have the knowledge or the time to do properly yourself.

A bookkeeper would work closely with your accountant providing him/her with a finished complete “set of books” at the end of your accounting year so that the accountant can prepare your accounts with confidence.

This is their job, they do it every day. A good bookkeeper will also ensure that you are compliant with the many rules and regulations that apply to running your business. Rules change every budget, good bookkeepers make it their business to keep up with rules and regulations and keep their professional knowledge up to date.

A bookkeeper will use your “books” to prepare your VAT returns (where appropriate) and ensure that you are claiming everything you can within the law.

A bookkeeper will manage your cash, reconcile your bank transactions, ensure you have been paid for invoices issued and categorise all of your capital and revenue costs in the right place. This will free you to concentrate on what you do best, running your business.

Another benefit you could find is that because they have other clients in many fields they will have some knowledge on the pricing of things like insurance and banking or other common items and could save you money in these areas as well.

At CC Associates we are members of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers and the Association of Accounting Technicians, we are regulated and monitored to ensure our knowledge is kept up to date. We provide bookkeeping services for many clients on a monthly, quarterly or even weekly basis.

Contact us for a free consultation and see how we can help you.

Tel 01656 729488
Email: [email protected]

As recently as 10-15 years ago, as a small business you would most likely picture your Bookkeeper as someone writing in great big hardback A3 ledgers, in various colour pens, whilst furiously tapping away on their calculator, excitedly shouting “I balanced it” at various points through the day.

Today’s computer environment has changed all that, and although we have clients who still keep what we class as “manual” records, we very rarely see “The Books” these days. More frequently, we see bookkeeping records kept using spreadsheets, or other computer generated documents.

With the sudden and rapid evolution of computers, almost everyone now uses their computer more and more, so it is a natural progression that you would want to keep your records yourself.  This sounds like a good idea in principal, not only from a cost saving point of view, but it also gives you a much better understanding of the financial position of your business if you keep on top of the numbers yourself.

All good ideas come with drawbacks though, and it’s worth considering the following points if you already keep your own books, or are thinking about starting to do so.

1. How much time are you spending doing the record keeping?

You are probably either adding to the time you actually spend at work / home carrying out this work, or you are not doing the other jobs in the business that you could be doing in the time spent on the books; maybe bringing in extra sales, training staff etc. Every hour really adds up!

It’s also likely that a good bookkeeper will prepare your records in an accurate and precise fashion, in a fraction of the time it will take you, as your expertise will lie elsewhere in the business.

2. Are you bookkeeping in a format that is going to be useful to your accountant at year end to produce the accounts?

You may well keep a great record from your perspective, but what your accountant may actually need may be totally different. This could mean that they have to re-do the work anyway, and you will be charged more than you would have paid in the first place.

3. Are you confident that you know what you can and can’t claim for, and how to treat certain unusual items?

It’s considered that a Bookkeeper in their professional capacity would have good up to date knowledge as legislation changes etc, and would be offering you their experience and knowledge as well as just doing the number crunching.

4. Do you know what to do with the numbers, after you add them up?

Getting the numbers down and adding them up is one thing, but now do you actually know how to interpret them, and use them in your business to increase your profits? Can you tell if there are patterns and trends emerging that could assist your business growth? A good bookkeeper will naturally see these things as they happen, and bring them to your attention as part of their role.

In a nutshell, not employing a bookkeeper could be costing you more than you think in time, effort and unnecessary mistakes.

We have combined experience of over 80 years in this area, and we can look after your bookkeeping. We will not only crunch the numbers, but provide you with a first class level of professional service, pointing out the things you wouldn’t think to ask about.  We will assist your day to day running of the business and increase your profitability. And we are far less expensive than you may think! If you would like us to come and see you for a free, no obligation overview of your current bookkeeping process, just get in touch.

[email protected]

Tel: 01656 729488