Bookkeeping Services for Small Business Owners in Houston
Bookkeeping services can protect the financial health of a small business through the following:
- Maintaining accurate financial records
- Managing the company’s payable and receivable accounts
- Reconciling transactions
- Creating financial sheets and statements
- Developing data for budgeting and projection purposes
- Assisting with financial analysis
- Preparing the company’s taxes
Although bookkeepers are often thought of as record keepers first, their role extends well beyond that. With an experienced CPA providing your company’s bookkeeping services, they can serve as a full-fledged financial partner that serves immediate accounting needs, while considering the long-range view of your company’s finances.
What Services Do Professional Bookkeepers offer Small Businesses in Houston?
Bookkeepers vary in the services they offer to small businesses, but you can expect the following from a small business bookkeeper who has extensive accounting experience:
Keeping accurate financial records
Bookkeepers maintain accurate and up-to-date records of the company’s transactional history, including expenses, sales and purchases.
Reconciling accounts and transactions
Bookkeepers keep a close eye on their clients’ accounts and ensure all account activity matches up with the company’s transactions. Account reconciliation can be used to identify fraudulent activity or errors leading to account discrepancies.
Overseeing the company’s accounts
A bookkeeper can take charge of a company’s receivable and payable accounts. On the receivable side, they can send out invoices and record payments from customers. On the payable side, bookkeepers receive invoices from vendors, record bills, and ensure payments are made on time.
Developing financial reports
Using the company’s accounting information, bookkeepers can develop important financial reporting documents, including cash flow, income, expense, and balance sheets.
Providing financial analysis for budgeting and forecasting
Some bookkeepers can assist business owners with improving their company’s financial performance. This includes quantifying trends and developing projections for more informed business decisions.
Preparing business taxes
Experienced bookkeepers often double as tax preparation experts, so they can help their business clients remain compliant with tax laws. Further, tax prep experts maximize tax credits and deductions for their clients, so business owners don’t overpay come tax season.
Processing payroll
Not all bookkeepers also offer payroll services, but those that do can save business owners precious time on several payroll tasks. This includes distributing paychecks, calculating wages, calculating and withholding taxes, setting up direct deposits, and verifying that payroll is handled in accordance with all labor laws.
Catch-up and Clean-up Bookkeeping: What’s the Difference?
You may hear bookkeeping services categorized as start-up, catch-up or clean-up services. Depending on the financial reporting situation of the business, it may require any one of the above. Here are the differences between the three and when each form of bookkeeping is needed:
- Catch-up bookkeeping – Catch-up bookkeeping is recommended for businesses that are behind on their financial record keeping, but otherwise have effective accounting processes in place. It includes recording past transactions, developing past financial statements, creating performance reports based on past data, and verifying tax compliance.
- Clean-up bookkeeping – Clean-up bookkeeping is recommended for companies that have inconsistent or incomplete accounting processes in place. It includes checking financial statements and tax documents for errors, reconciling transactions, inputting invoices, and consolidating record keeping methods.
There is also start-up bookkeeping, which is exactly what it sounds like – implementing accounting processes for a business that has recently formed or is about to form. Start-up bookkeeping involves fundamental accounting concepts such as creating business accounts, establishing record keeping processes, setting up payroll, and other essential accounting considerations.
Why Small Business Owners in Houston Partner with Bookkeepers
Small business owners have a lot to juggle when they first launch their company, but one of the first professionals they’ll need to reach out to is a bookkeeper. Here is why this is a great idea:
- Bookkeepers have expertise in financial record keeping and reporting – Bookkeepers specialize in financial record keeping and reporting and can develop an optimal set of accounting instruments for their business clients. This starts with choosing the right accounting method and building out the company’s financial reporting infrastructure to ensure accounting efficiency going forward. Experienced bookkeepers emphasize fundamentally sound accounting methods and accuracy, providing business owners with reliable financial reporting measures.
- Bookkeepers can save business owners time and money – Bookkeeping, payroll and tax compliance are three of the most time-consuming and stress-inducing parts of running a company. On average, small business owners spend more than 10 hours every month on bookkeeping, about five hours every pay cycle on payroll (or about 21 days total during the year) and more than 80 hours every year on taxes. That’s a lot of time (and money) an expert bookkeeper can recover for their small business clients.
- Bookkeepers ensure compliance as the business grows – Bookkeepers create a strong accounting foundation for small business owners, one that can scale up with the company as it grows. Tax compliance and reporting processes must be streamlined before they can grow with a company. An expert bookkeeper can develop and optimize an organization’s accounting, reporting and tax compliance measures from the outset, ensuring they remain reliable as operations grow in complexity.
- Bookkeepers can provide advanced insights into financial performance – Not all bookkeepers are equipped to perform advanced financial analysis or tax planning services, but those that are able can act as a long-range strategic partner for their clients.
For example, financial analysis can reveal whether inefficiencies are plaguing the company and undermining profitability. It can help business owners make better decisions regarding which products to invest in or customers to market to. Tax planning services can position a business for long-term tax savings through income planning, optimizing deductions, timing capital investments, and utilizing numerous tax saving strategies baked into the Internal Revenue Code.
A reputable bookkeeper ensures small business owners stay on track with their company’s finances, in the present and into the future.
Houston Bookkeeping Services Can Save Small Businesses Both Time and
Expert bookkeeping services – ideally provided by a certified public accountant – can help Houston business owners pressed for time and resources. Every year, small business owners spend hundreds of hours on payroll, tax compliance and financial reporting. This is time that could be better spent in many other areas of the business. Bookkeeping services help business owners save time so it can be reinvested where it is needed most.
