The Importance of Bookkeeping
Congratulations! You’ve decided to start a business. The excitement of turning a profit? Yes! Building a customer base and relationships? Absolutely! The feeling of absolute contentment because your business’ bookkeeping is organized and well maintained? (crickets) Let’s be frank, bookkeeping lacks an element of flare and excitement. I would even go as far as to say that when an individual decides to start a business, bookkeeping is one of the last items that is discussed and thought about.
In reality, keeping good books is one of the most important elements of smoothly running a strong business. Working with our tax preparers, I have seen first-hand the efficiency and cost differences between strong bookkeeping and weak bookkeeping. When it is time for the CROFT & FROST team to prepare your taxes, strong bookkeeping allows for easy access to your financials. This saves time and ultimately money because all of the financial info is organized and easy to access. This results in a smooth process that allows for returns to be completed accurately, quickly and in a cost efficient manner. In cases where the books are disorganized or (gasp!) non-existent, it requires our team to spend extra time working through the books. Working through the books to categorize expenses and correct figures is a large time commitment that will greatly impact the preparation times of the return as well as incur more expense.
While important and at times tedious, bookkeeping is not and doesn’t have to be complicated. For basic bookkeeping for a small business, the individual with a “do-it-yourself” spirit can likely maintain their own books. All that is needed is a little organization, basic computer skills and the help of bookkeeping software like Quickbooks or Freshbooks. For the individual that has a large corporation, multiple businesses, complicated entity structures or just doesn’t want the responsibility of maintaining their business’s books it is strongly recommended a competent bookkeeping service be employed to keep everything in order. By partnering with a company that specializes in bookkeeping a business owner will be able to seek advice and support from a team that understands all of the laws and intricacies.
The good news is that bookkeeping is one of the many services that is offered at CROFT & FROST. The price of our bookkeeping services is easily recouped in the tax savings that naturally occurs from having organized books. Whether you need help starting your books, cleaning them up or maintaining what you have, we have a dedicated team that can help to keep your books in order and support you in your business endeavors.
By: Tarbell Patten IV, Client Experience Manager at CROFT & FROST