Outsourced Bookkeeping for Better Financial Organization With GoStravo

Introduction

Keeping track of your finances can quickly become complex.

Initially you may only have a few transactions, expenses and invoices to keep track of. This can all be done within a short amount of time each week.

As your business grows

You may have more customers paying you, so you’ll have more expenses. New suppliers will be sending you invoices, your bank accounts will be busy and you may have new staff. Suddenly your financial records won’t be a quick weekly task.

It becomes an ongoing task.

If your financial records aren’t kept up to date it can be difficult to get an overall picture of your business finances. You may struggle to know how much you’re spending and how much cash you have available. You may also waste hours searching for information.

Outsourcing Bookkeeping

By outsourcing your bookkeeping you’ll have support from professionals to keep your records up to date. Regular bookkeeping can be carried out.

This does not give someone control over your business finances.

Whilst outsourcing your bookkeeping will help keep your financial processes in order you will still make key business decisions.

Small companies can ensure they are keeping on top of their records with the correct processes in place. This can help reduce errors, save time and allow you to get a clearer overall picture.GoStravo provide bookkeeping support and other back office services. If you want to keep your business in order having bookkeeping support can help reduce the pressure of regular financial admin.

What Is Outsourced Bookkeeping?

Outsourced Bookkeeping means using a third party professional/service to complete part or all of your daily bookkeeping.

They can complete entries,

reconciliation,

expenses set up,

and recording and reporting of your financial data.

Bookkeeping does not mean financial management.

You as the business owner will still make choices such as,

what you want to spend your money on,

hiring someone,

and investing in something new.

The bookkeeping team will make sure your data is in order. A good bookkeeping service will give you more clarity. If you have lots of customers paying you money each week you will want to make sure you are entering this into your books correctly. You will also want to make sure you are putting the correct classification on payments to your suppliers and other expenses. If you do not do this regularly it can get very confusing. By outsourcing your bookkeeping you will have the data updated regularly. This means the business owner does not have to wait until the end of the year to know what their financial data looks like.

Financial Disorganization Creates Bigger Problems

Financial Disorganisation Leads To More Issues

Whenever there is poor organisation within your finances it is unlikely that there will just be one issue.

Most times the issues will be linked.

For example if you forget to log multiple expenses for your business,

it will mean that your total expenses will be incorrect.

Your monthly report will no longer give an accurate insight.

You will be making decisions with incomplete information.

If you’re not balancing your bank accounts then there could be problems.

Your books won’t match up with what you have in your actual account.

This means someone will need to look into it.

It may cause delays.

If you haven’t been keeping up to date with your bookkeeping it can cause stress close to your tax deadlines.

Rather than having organised books to look through you could be spending multiple days searching for receipts or fixing old transactions.

If you keep things organised within your finances it will help you easily locate information. You’ll have less to catch up on.

Outsourcing can help with this as if your internal team don’t have enough time to keep your books up to date.

Read our full blog: Outsourced Bookkeeping Services for Business | GoStravo

Benefit 1: Keep Financial Records up to Date

One of the easiest benefits to an outsourced bookkeeper is the fact that it is consistent.

Bookkeeping should be done on a regular basis.

Transactions shouldn’t be left to build up for months, bank accounts shouldn’t be left to not be reconciled and expenses shouldn’t be left to build up in a folder.

This regular bookkeeping will prevent this from happening. For example, your outsourced bookkeeper could provide you with transaction entries each week and a bank reconciliation each month.

You will have a set schedule.

You will know that they are keeping your books up to date. Your books will also be easier to use.

If you need to look at your operating expenses for last month, if your books are being kept up to date then you’ll be able to easily look at the information. If your books are 3 months out of date then the report may not give you much information about how you are doing now.

Your business will have a stronger finance base.

Benefit 2: Improved Accuracy

Bookkeeping can be quite tricky.

Small mistakes can be made which can cause confusion.

Transactions can be double entered, expenses in the wrong category and money paid by your customers can be against the incorrect invoice.

This can often occur if you’re struggling with your bookkeeping and have a lot going on.

By outsourcing, you can get a far more focused process.

Your bookkeeper will be regularly accessing your financial records and performing repetitive tasks such as reconciliations.

For example, bank reconciliations involve comparing your records to what actually happened. If there is a discrepancy they will need to investigate.

This can help you spot any missing or incorrect transactions.

Whilst your books won’t be perfect when you outsource, you will have a process in place.

As there is a consistent process, there is more chance of finding errors.

Most likely it will be much easier to correct an error in one transaction recently rather than going back through months of incorrect data.

Benefit 3 – Understand Your Business Finances

As a business owner, you’ll need more than just a bank account to give you an idea of your finances.

Whilst your bank account will tell you how much you currently have in hand, you may want to know:

How much money you’ve made,

How much money you are spending,

How much money is owed to you by your customers,

And how you may earn in the future.

Keeping good records will help you to understand all of this.

Creating regular reports will help you to identify trends which you may not notice from looking at individual transactions. For example, you may notice that your running costs in one area have increased over the past 3 months.

You may start notices that your customer payments are taking longer to reach you.

Or your turnover is up, but you feel like you are not getting much cash.

Having accurate up to date records will help you to have greater insight.

Making good decisions about your finances. You’ll know exactly where you are spending your money, know where your costs are increasing and have better conversations with your accountant/other advisor.

Keeping track of your finances can help you manage your business more effectively.

Benefit 4: Save Valuable Time

Many small business owners choose to do their own bookkeeping in order to save cost.

However, your time is also valuable.

If you’re spending 5 hours a week just to keep your books up to date, review them and sort out any issues that arise then this can quickly turn into 20 hours a month.

Over the course of a year this can turn into hundreds of hours.

In that time you could be doing other things like:

Meeting new customers

Sales

Improving your products

Training your team

Planning for the next stage of your growth.

Whilst you will need to do your bookkeeping, do you have to do every single task?

By outsourcing your regular bookkeeping tasks it means you can save time and spend your time on tasks that utilise your knowledge and management skills.

It can also reduce the stress of having to do your bookkeeping out of hours.

Whilst this may be difficult to put a price on it can make a real difference to how your business runs.

5. More Consistent Bookkeeping Process

If you’ve got an inconsistent bookkeeping process then this can create a whole host of issues.

One month everything gets done,

the next month you’re busy and nothing gets done.

The following month comes around,

and before you know it your business is getting backed up. However if you have a consistent outsourced process, this can avoid this issue. You will be able to follow a set schedule.

This might include:

Recording transactions weekly.

Reconciling bank accounts monthly.

Producing reports at the end of each period.

Supporting documentation will be filed in an agreed way.

This creates a consistent process. A consistent process is important to ensure that you aren’t relying on being free this week to organise your finances. Having a consistent process will also make it easier to spot any issues. If you notice that one element of your process has taken longer than usual, you can look into why this has happened. If you have numbers in your report that aren’t what you expect, you can look into what has been happening recently. Having a consistent process makes the whole process easier to understand.

6. Control Costs

You will have costs associated with having an in house bookkeeper.

You may have to:

Find a member of staff

Train them

Buy new software, hardware, benefits and management.

For some businesses this is not a problem however within smaller businesses you may decide to outsource your bookkeeping.

This means you are paying for a particular bookkeeping service rather than a full time in house member of staff.

This can help to ensure you are paying the correct amount.

A small company may not want much more than just recording transactions, reconciliation and monthly reporting. As they grow they may require more assistance, which provides more flexibility.

However businesses should consider the overall cost. Just because something is cheaper does not mean it will be high quality. If they are making many mistakes or constantly have to be managed it could be much more expensive. The goal should be to have reliable bookkeeping at a reasonable overall cost.

7) Simplify Growth of Your Business

As your business grows, there will be additional bookkeeping needs:

More customers will increase the amount of transactions.

More staff could add more payroll information.

More suppliers will add more invoices.

If you're growing your online business, you could be receiving payments from multiple sources.

A basic bookkeeping solution will not be sufficient once you start to grow your business.

This can become an issue.

The owner would like to grow the business, but the admin tasks increase.

Outsourcing your bookkeeping will help you by providing extra capacity. You won't have to re-do everything from scratch.

You could start off with monthly bookkeeping.

Then as you grow, you might want your bookkeeping more frequently.

Adding support with your accounts payable.

Better reports around cashflow.

A flexible bookkeeping service can adapt to your changing requirements. This can help simplify your growth as your bookkeeping will scale with your business.

Read Our Related Blog—

How Small Businesses Can Cut Costs Through Outsourcing

5 Signs Your Business Needs Outsourced Bookkeeping

Outsourced Bookkeeping Services for Business | GoStravo

Bookkeeping Tasks Small Businesses Can Outsource.

Not every business will require the same things done.

Many businesses start off outsourcing just a few regular tasks.

Recording Transactions

All financial transactions should be correctly recorded.

By regularly recording your transactions you can keep your books up to date.

Banking and Credit Cards

Helping to ensure that your accounts match your records.

This can help highlight any missing transactions.

Categorising Expenses

Expenses should be categorised correctly.

This can help provide a more useful report.

Accounts Payable

Tracking supplier invoices.

Helping to know what bills are coming due.

Accounts Receivable

Tracking customer invoices and payments.

Helping to keep track of what is owed.

Reporting

By regularly producing reports you can help owners understand what income and expenses they have and how they are performing.

Cash Flow

Tracking how much money is coming into and going out of your business.

Having good bookkeeping can help you track your cashflow better.

It depends on your company how you set it up.

Start off by doing the task that takes up the most time or causes confusion.

Maintaining Control When Outsourcing Bookkeeping Services

Some business owners are concerned that by outsourcing their bookkeeping they will lose control.

However,

You should always keep a close eye on things.

Review your reports.

Ensure you have the right people with access to the correct level of your accounts.

If something looks out of place ask questions.

Ensure there is a clear understanding of how communication will work.

How often will the provider update you?

Who will be the point of contact?

What will require your approval?

Bookkeeping includes sensitive information so it is important that businesses understand how the data is being stored and shared.

Ensure everything is secure.

Limit peoples access to just what they need.

Update access to match the roles.

With a high level of control and a good outsourced service you can have both.

How to Find the Best Outsourced Bookkeeping Support.

Experience.

Find someone who knows what type of bookkeeping support you need.

Scope.

Don’t just ask for someone to “manage your books”.

Be specific.

Weekly transaction recording.

Monthly bank reconciliations.

Profit and loss reports.

Invoicing.

This will help ensure everyone has a clear understanding of what is expected.

Contact details.

Know who you can contact.

You should be aware of how fast the team will be able to respond.

They should be able to clearly explain any issues they are having without using complex financial jargon.

Security.

Ask them how they manage security for your accounts and any sensitive documents.

Growth.

Ideally find someone who will be able to provide enough flexibility to provide extra bookkeeping support in the future.

Creating a Better Financial Structure Through GoStravo

GoStravo offer a bookkeeping service as part of their wider business support package.

This can be extremely useful for small or growing companies as it often ties in with other elements of administration.

Having accurate data can play a big part in having a good structure in place. E-commerce companies will need to have good organisation when it comes to their transactions. Payroll records can also cause issues with your bookkeeping.

Having a business support partner that understands how these aspects tie in can help create a smooth back of house process.

However, the best thing to do is understand what your needs really are.

Where are you facing issues with your bookkeeping?

Are your records always out of date?

Are your reconciliations taking too long?

Is it difficult to create financial reports?

Are you spending too much of your own time updating?

Once you know what issues you are facing you can then work out what level of support you need with your bookkeeping. GoStravo can then be used to provide an outsourced support solution.

It is very important to remember why you are using an outsourced solution. It should always be to improve how your business operates.

Final Thoughts

Whilst having more spreadsheets and software will not necessarily help organize your finances, having a good bookkeeping system that helps you keep your records up to date and accurate can really add value.

Outsourcing your bookkeeping can help your business by keeping your books up to date, reducing the chances of little mistakes becoming bigger issues, giving the owner more clarity on their profits, costs and cash flow, and can also save you time. 

Most importantly, outsourcing can help you get into a routine. However,

you should not completely leave your finances to your bookkeeper. The owner needs to check the reports, understand the key figures, and make financial decisions.

The bookkeeper will help you keep your records for these decisions organized and reliable.This can work well for small businesses. You have control but the bookkeeping can be undertaken by a professional. As your company grows,

you can increase the support you receive.

Not only will your books be neater, but your finances will be easier to understand and manage. Having your records organized means you can spend less time searching for numbers and more time using them to make useful decisions.

The real benefit of outsourcing your bookkeeping is that it helps keep your finances structured, saves you time, and increases your financial visibility. With support from a service like GoStravo, small and growing companies can set up a bookkeeping process that helps them with their day-to-day operations and long term growth.