BENEFIT 1 – ALLOWS YOU TO FOCUS ON YOUR BUSINESS
Whether you are a new or seasoned business owner, it is important to always have all the required experts by your side.
Any work that falls outside of your scope of expertise is usually left to be dealt with last. This will often impede on your personal or family time.
A bookkeeper reduces your day-to-day workload such as sales tracking, expense tracking, putting together audit ready filing systems and maintaining organized books for year-end financial reporting, allowing you to focus on your business and leave some time for yourself at the end of the day.
BENEFIT 2 – REDUCES THE MARGIN OF ERROR
The Canada Revenue Agency (“CRA”) has many rules when it comes to revenues and expenses. If these rules are not respected, penalties could apply in the event of an audit
Every bookkeeping transaction needs to be analyzed prior to completing the data entry to ensure that the CRA rules are followed. For example, meals and entertainment should be treated at 50% claim, which also applies to the HST portion.
The more errors that are made in your day-to-day bookkeeping, the more difficult it will be for your accountant to prepare accurate year-end financial statements and/or your income tax return.
An experienced bookkeeper properly analyses all transactions to ensure that your books comply of CRA rules.
BENEFIT 3 – IMPORTANT DEADLINES ARE RESPECTED
There are many important deadlines involved when managing the accounting of a business. Some of these deadlines are HST remittances, Payroll Tax remittances, Payroll, WSIB and Income tax filings.
When an important deadline is missed, costly financial penalties are immediately applied. Some more severe than others.
A bookkeeper removes the burden of respecting these deadlines by ensuring that proper reminders are in place, reports are prepared ahead of time, reviewed with you and payments are submitted on time.
BENEFIT 4 – PROPER SYSTEMS ARE IN PLACE
When you are not experienced in bookkeeping, you may not be aware of the importance of a proper accounting software. Many are still using Excel as an accounting option. Although Excel is a useful tool, it is not recommended to use it to record your revenues and expenses.
There are hundreds of different accounting softwares, both for bookkeeping and for payroll processing. Not having the proper accounting software in place for your business can create issues when it comes time for financial year end preparation, audit reviews and time spent on your regular bookkeeping.
An experienced bookkeeper can analyze your business accounting requirements and advise on the best software suitable for your type of business.
BENEFIT 5 – REDUCES COSTS
A bookkeeper can save you costs in many ways, some of which are:
TIME IS MONEY – your time spent on bookkeeping reduces the time you can be spending on marketing your business, bringing you more sales.
ACCOUNTS PAYABLE – paying all your supplier invoices on time avoids interest fees.
LATE CRA FILINGS – if you miss a deadline, interest and penalties could easily amount to the total cost of your bookkeeper for 1 year’s work.
ACCOUNTANT – the less review and correction work your accountant must do to prepare accurate financial statements, the less you will be charged for their work.
JOB OR PROJECT TRACKING – a bookkeeper can provide real time profit and loss statements per project, which will assist you in properly planning the remainder of a specific project while tracking your profit margin.
