Top Five Things To Look For When Hiring A Bookkeeper
Enlisting the services of an efficient and professional bookkeeper ensures that you receive the financial information and business intelligence you need to make accurate and timely decisions. They can help prevent financial errors in record keeping and become the glue that holds an organization together.
With the right person in place, you get the correct information and have the time to focus on business growth strategies rather than balancing your books. However, the process of hiring a qualified bookkeeper is not always a straightforward decision.
To avoid any complications and simplify the task of enlisting the right professional, here’s a list of the top five things to look for when hiring a bookkeeper.
1. Experience
An experienced bookkeeper will utilize their experience to think ahead and anticipate the needs of your organization. However, It is critically important that the bookkeeper you are considering has experience in bookkeeping for an organization of similar size and complexity to yours. They should have experience with your industry and understand its unique bookkeeping requirements.
2. Efficiency
By the nature of the role, a bookkeeper must have a keen attention to detail. Alongside experience and the right qualifications, a bookkeeper must have the ability to identify errors and balance accounts on the fly. The gift of attention to detail will help you avoid several finance and accounting-related issues.
3. Communication
As a business owner, you will be communicating regularly with your bookkeeper, especially in the first few months of working together. Therefore, it’s essential that you hire a bookkeeper who is clear, concise, and speaks and writes in language that makes sense to you. If your preference is phone calls, then find out if your bookkeeper offers phone support. If your preference is email correspondence, then reflect on the emails you’ve received from them so far. Time is money, and if a bookkeeper takes up your time with ineffective communication, it will hamper your business growth.
4. Reputation
While experience can be assessed by the number of years in service, efficiency and communication can be gauged by the experience of past or existing clients. As a client, you should always ask a potential bookkeeper about providing references. Positive feedback should reassure you that you are making the right decision, while overly negative feedback should usher you towards continuing your search.
5. Innovation and Technology
As a modern-day company, you should be using a software system to keep your company’s financials and manage your books. In today’s world, the Cloud has completely revolutionized the accounting and bookkeeping industry. All data can now be made readily available on the internet while still being secure, instead of on in-house servers. A bookkeeper who is up-to-date with innovation and technology will guide you through the various available software. This will help you automate complex and time-consuming job costing processes and ensure you get accurate and timely financial intelligence.
If you are looking for a credible and trustworthy bookkeeper in Ontario, get in touch with CG Accounting & Bookkeeping Inc.
Whether it is full-cycle bookkeeping, accounting, payroll, or customized financial reports, we have vast experience working with food manufacturing, steel distribution, steel fabrication, medical, wholesale, and non-profit organizations and offer full-cycle bookkeeping, payroll, hosting and remote access, EFT payments, and customized reports.
Our bookkeepers and staff are qualified in both QuickBooks and Sage 50, are efficient communicators, and have all the required experience to provide excellent bookkeeping and accounting results for you. We also provide virtual bookkeeping if needed and serve clients across Hamilton, Burlington, Mississauga, Oakville, Milton, Cambridge, and the surrounding areas. If you are looking to understand the services that we provide, please click here. If you want to connect with us, please click here.