Who this applies to
Owners spending too much time on bookkeeping.
Key questions
- How many hours a month does bookkeeping take you?
- Do you trust and use your reports?
- Are you planning a loan, investment or sale?
Review with the OICPA team
- Estimate the value of your bookkeeping hours
- Ask how reconciliation and reporting will work
Every business owner starts as their own bookkeeper. The question is when that stops making sense. Here are the signs, the options, and how to decide.
Signs it's time
- You're more than a month behind, or you reconcile once a year.
- Bookkeeping takes more than a few hours a month, often at night or on weekends.
- You don't trust your reports, or you don't look at them.
- You've had an IRS or state notice, a surprise tax bill or a penalty.
- You're applying for a loan, raising money or thinking about selling.
- You've added payroll, inventory, a second location or a second entity.
- Your tax preparer spends hours each year fixing your books.
Run the math
Estimate the hours you spend on bookkeeping each month and multiply by what your time is worth, either your billing rate or what an hour of selling or delivering earns. Compare that with a monthly fee. For most owners past the first year, the math favors handing it off, before counting missed deductions and errors.
Your options
DIY with software. Lowest cost, works at low volume if you're disciplined about monthly reconciliation.
A part-time employee. Good for daily tasks like invoicing and bill pay; harder to cover vacations, turnover and technical questions, and you still need an accountant to review.
A freelance bookkeeper. Flexible and often affordable; quality and continuity vary, and there's usually a handoff to a separate tax preparer.
A CPA-led bookkeeping firm. A team, a documented process and tax knowledge built in. The same firm can prepare your return and plan with you, so there's no handoff where errors creep in.
What to ask before you hire
- Will every bank, card and loan account be reconciled every month?
- What reports will I get, and when?
- Who answers my questions, and how quickly?
- How is the price set, and what's not included?
- How will you access my accounts, and how are documents shared securely?
Starting with us
Our prices are published on the bookkeeping pricing page, and the cost estimator gives you a range in two minutes. If you're behind, we start with a catch-up or cleanup, then move to monthly bookkeeping.
See what this would cost
Compare service scopes and starting prices, or build an estimate online in a few minutes.
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