5 Useful Bookkeeping Tips for Accountants Working with Small Businesses

Accountants often work with clients and businesses of different sizes. While larger firms are more informed and organised about accounting processes, smaller businesses may not be as aware and well-managed.

Bookkeeping, for instance, is a mundane but critical part of accounting. Well-kept and up-to-date books can help businesses keep track of their transactions efficiently. In fact, several businesses attribute a part of their success to efficient accounting and bookkeeping.

Since bookkeeping is fundamental to accounting, it must be done right. Accountants, therefore, take extraordinary steps such as switching to the latest software or turning to outsourced bookkeeping services to ensure their clients’ books are maintained well.

However, working with small businesses may not essentially be straightforward. Accountants may, at times, need to put additional efforts into training and communicating with clients.

Here are five helpful bookkeeping tips for accountants working with small businesses.

Educate your clients

Small businesses are often novice and do not have a streamlined process to keep track of all their transactions. These clients may not fully know the importance of sorting personal and business expenses or reviewing their books regularly.

As an accountant working with such a business, it is your responsibility to educate and train your clients. Although you are in charge of their bookkeeping, you will need data from your client to make and maintain records.

Once your client understands how data must be tracked and maintained, your job becomes easier.

Keep a record of small transactions

Small and new businesses often tend to ignore small amounts and transactions. But as an accountant, you are aware of their importance.

Make sure every small transaction by your client is accounted for in their books. Train them to identify which transactions should be recorded and which shouldn’t. After all, a single missed transaction can mess up your books and impact your calculation.

Plan for their taxes regularly

While maintaining your clients’ books, it is also essential to plan for their taxes simultaneously. As mentioned earlier, a small business client may not be aware of the correlation between the two.

However, as an accountant or bookkeeper, you are responsible for factoring taxes into their pricing and cash flow. This not only makes the tax preparation job easier for the client, but they may actually end up delegating the tax filing job to you since you are aware of their processes and transactions.

This is an excellent way to pitch a new service to your existing clients and increase your revenue stream.

Shift focus to paperless bookkeeping

Going paperless is the way forward for accountants and bookkeepers. In addition to accountancy practices, several outsourced bookkeeping services providers are also shifting focus to paperless bookkeeping in modern times to make the process less cumbersome and hassle-free.

Cloud-based bookkeeping is a rising trend among accountants in 2022. It allows accountants to ditch the traditional physical books and store a huge amount of data online. It also helps automate processes for higher efficiency and time savings.

For instance, accountants or clients can simply scan and upload a transaction receipt to the software, allowing the tool to take care of the rest. The tool allocates the receipt to a transaction from your bank statement and stores the data securely on the cloud.

Seek external help when necessary

Lastly, do not make the mistake of relying on the do-it-all ideology. Accountants are busy and often loaded with work from multiple clients. Besides, accountants and practice owners also need time to focus on their firm’s growth and improving their services.

Outsourced bookkeeping is the most reliable solution for these accountants.

Bookkeeping for small businesses can be cumbersome, especially because of the unorganised nature of the transactions. While shifting to the latest bookkeeping software is a favourable solution, you also need technically-adept staff to overlook this process and train your clients.

However, since most accountancy firms are currently understaffed owing to talent shortages and the Great Resignation, outsourcing bookkeeping services for business is the most recommended solution.

Bookkeeping outsourcing providers help accountants hire highly experienced and trained resources for their team, thus simplifying tedious tasks such as bookkeeping and accounting. This can allow you to create capacity for your firm and focus on growth and value-based services.

Are you looking for a technologically-adept outsourcing provider?

QXAS is a leading outsourced bookkeeping services provider in the UK with over 18+ years of experience serving diverse clients in the accounting industry. We have a dedicated team of over 1500+ skilled accountants and bookkeepers extensively trained on the latest UK accounting legislation.

Recently, we have partnered with MyWorkpapers, an intellectual cloud-based accounting software company, to provide an end-to-end technologically-fueled outsourcing solution tailored to clients’ needs.

To learn more about our services, call us on +44 208-146-0808, drop an email at [email protected] or log on to Outsourced Accounting, Bookkeeping, and Payroll Services | QXAS UK (qxaccounting.com).