Ashfords Bookkeeping Q&A

"Bookkeeping is managing the day to day transactions and finances of a business. They are the business owners’ right hand person. They understand how the business functions to provide their products and services. A bookkeeper traditionally reconciles bank statements, pay runs, debtors, and creditors to ensure a business owner has accurate information to base decisions off. Our bookkeepers take it one step further, they are able to help with your business administration, assist in managing internal systems and processes, HR, as well as identifying efficiencies and improvement in the business."

"Bookkeepers come in all shapes and sizes, some with specialties, others as sole traders. The biggest benefits of hiring an outsourced bookkeeping team are:

• Your accounts will always be up to date and on time.
• You don’t run the risk of relying solely on one individual as a good bookkeeping service has a team for support.
• Good bookkeepers have dealt with multiple businesses, and can assist beyond the call of duty to improve your business.
• A good bookkeeper will reduce your stress and allow piece of mind that your business accounts are up to date and in order."

 "Ashfords bookkeepers work as a cohesive unit to provide the best service to our clients, we are fast paced and proactive, which helps extinguish the sparks before they become fires.

• Our multi-disciplinary practice works together to provide you with fluid services that collaborate with and empower your business.

• Bookkeeping is the easy part, anyone can do data entry; but what makes Ashfords stand out is our understanding of where and why to enter the data and how this impacts your business, from payroll to reporting and cash flow.

• Our bookkeepers are ready to assist your business at any level, we can provide as much or as little assistance as is required, and our approach is always tailored to the client, no two businesses are the same.

• Our main focus is making sure the decision makers of the business are informed, have reliable data, and efficient systems and processes."

"When choosing a bookkeeper, the 6 top things you should be looking for are:

• A team instead of an individual to minimise risk
• Someone you can get along with, your bookkeeper needs to understand you and your business
• The depth of a firm’s service that includes end to end business support, so you know you have a bookkeeper that can reach out to specialist areas for direct and immediate support when you need it.
• Diversity of knowledge to allow unique suggestions and input
• Lateral and critical thinking, they need to be able to troubleshoot what you give them and identify potential problems before they develop
• Efficiency, a bookkeeper’s goal is to give the business owner back their time to do what they're passionate about.
• Someone who can be the bridge between the business owner and the accountant"

"Ask yourself the following questions:

• Will my bookkeeper talk to my team?
• Am I spending more time in my business instead of on it?
• Is my business too heavily reliant on a single person to make sure transactions go through the business?
• If I hired an employee to do the job, would I get the added value of an outsourced bookkeeper’s experience?
• Do I need a bookkeeper who can come into my office to help with administration if I need the support?
• Do I need a bookkeeper to provide me with training to make sure I understand their role and can extract the information I need?
• Worried about fraud and theft? An independent team of bookkeepers that are held to account eliminates risk.