“I need help! I need it now – can you give me a quote to get my bookwork upto date?”
As bookkeepers, we are often asked to sort out the paperwork for businesses that have got in a mess with their bookwork. The worst case to date was a client who brought around a sportsbag full of receipts and invoices.
No bookkeeper could realistically give you a quote for a job without seeing the extent of the paperwork. The lady emailed and asked how much it would cost to sort out five years of paperwork. Her husband had a carpentry business, and she at least had kept a ledger – but who knows if she understood double entry bookkeeping, or when she had last balanced her figures.
Small businesses can save on bookkeeping fees with a few basic fundamentals
So many small businesses could save money on their bookwork with a few basic fundamentals. Things that take 15 seconds to implement, that if forgotten could cost so much down the track in time and thus money.
There’s no problem in bringing five years of bookwork upto date – your bookkeeping fees would be reduced compared to doing the bookwork over the five year period. However, it could be substantially more than the fees for bookwork over a one year period, simply because of the volume of work.
We made a guestimation of how much it would cost to prepare the documentation for five years of tax returns.
Guess what the client came back with?
“It would probably save us money if we did it ourselves!”
Well, that may be correct if the client did not factor the cost of their own time. Secondly, if they are not experienced in bookkeeping practices and incorrectly allocate funds, then it could actually end up costing them a heap more than having us do it.
How much is it costing you to save money?
Thirdly, if they did not prepare the accounts correctly they could find that their accountant charges theme for keying five years worth of figures. And guess what?
Do you think the accountant would charge the client bookkeepers rates for data entry? Most unlikely! The accountant may well subcontract the job out to a bookkeeper paying bookkeepers rates and cgarging the client at full accounting rates
As bookkeepers, we are still trying to work out how the client has worked out that its chaeper for them to do their own bookwork since they’ve had no tax returns for five years
If your paperwork is not in order, or if you think you are paying too much for bookkeeping services, then contact us now
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