“How much will it SAVE me to outsource my bookkeeping?”
Small business owners are always concerned about their outgoings, and the first question that they ask a prospective bookkeeper is about their hourly rate.
Would it be fair to assume that the question that you really want answered is “How much will it save me to outsource my bookkeeping?”
How much it will cost to outsource your bookkeeping is not a straight forward mathematical equation of [Bookkeeper's rate] multiplied by the [time spent].
There’s other factors to consider, such as:
- how much time will be saved out of your day?
- How much time will be saved knowing that the job will be done correctly?
- How much stress will it save you?
Have you considered what you could be doing with the extra time that you are in effect “buying back”? And is your time worth more to your business than the cost of your bookkeeper’s time?
All these factors are also dependant on whether you regard your bookwork, and having a handle on the financial side of your business, as an expense or an investment.
Unless you can compare apples with apples, shopping around for bookkeeping rates will not answer your question. It’s not like you are buying a specific make and model of fridge and trying to find a hardly normal price from your local electrical retailer.
A good bookkeeper is hard to find, is a valuable asset to your business, and is well worth the investment. Go to any “two dollar” shop and you’ll know that the product that you buy will last for a short time, but in most cases is disposable.
Just as in your business, you know that the lower the price, chances are the lower the quality. Are you prepared to sacrifice your rates and value of your expertise for the sake of a sale? Most business owners go down that path when they are struggling to find clients. So why would a good book-keeper be struggling to find clients? Average bookeepers are plentiful, and they consider the best way they can attract clients is by lowering their rates.
Often you’ll find that bookkeepers that have lowered their rates will take longer to carry out thier work, and so you’ll be paying them the same overall for the service that a book keeper charging higher rates will have completed in less time.
Remember this: the question that you really want the answer to is “How much will it save me to outsource my book-keeping?”
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1 response so far ↓
1 Angie Wheatcroft // Sep 3, 2009 at 7:49 am
This is what my website says exactly. I haven’t heard anyone say it so precisely. I meet so many business owners who have tried to do the books themselves and spent countless hours working on it and then see that if they would hire a bookkeeper they can save themselves countless hours and headaches. They are amazed at how beneficial it is to have their bookkeeping outsourced.