What to Do When Your Bookkeeper Quits?

Bookkeeping is an integral part of any business. Maintaining financial records, tracking the company’s income, expenditure and payroll, etc., all fall under a bookkeeper’s purview.

Can you imagine a situation where your bookkeeper decides to quit? Such a situation would be difficult to handle, especially if it’s during tax time.

Don’t worry! What feels like the end, is often just a door to a new beginning. Here are some tips to help you handle such a situation.

Do Not Panic

Your first instinct may be to panic. Don’t. Doing so won’t help your business. Instead, consider this as an opportunity to learn more about the financial details of the company. Utilize this time to assess how your business is doing and how it can be improved.

Inform Your Team

You must inform your staff without delay that the bookkeeper has left. It is important because the team needs to be prepared to do some extra work in the bookkeeper’s absence. You team also needs to be given clear instructions to no longer share financial details with the former bookkeeper as doing so may lead to sabotage if the leave was on bad terms.

Recover Your Data

Relationships don’t always end well and even in business, resentment from one party could result in future harm. Try to recover as many files and financial reports from your former bookkeeper to ensure a smoother transition. Avoid leaving files or sensitive information with the former employee if possible. Doing so can cause damage to your business in the future.

Consider Your Options

Even though the situation has left you in a pinch, you need to take a step-back and consider your options carefully. Don’t just hire the first person to walk in the door. Before hiring a new bookkeeper, find out how much value he or she is adding, what services he or she can provide and how he or she can improve other business processes.

Find a Suitable Bookkeeper

Although the situation you’re in is unfortunate, the show must go on. You can go through the hiring process for a new bookkeeper, or you can build a new business relationship with a professional bookkeeping service provider and avoid the issue entirely in the future. The choice us up to you.

While it’s a big problem in the short-run, a sudden bookkeeper vacancy is not the end of the world. The world of business is full of uncertainties and this is a part of it. Instead of panicking, view the situation as an opportunity to learn more about a critical function of your business, and to find a solution to prevent it from happening again in the future.

What You Need to Know about Accounts Receivables

An accounts receivable is the amount that a firm has a right to receive based on the goods and services it provided to a client. To put it briefly—accounts receivable is the money waiting to hit an account. The firm legally owns the cash, it just hasn’t been acquired yet.

What they are and why they matter

Accounts receivables are shown in the asset side of a business’s balance sheet. When dealing with reliable and regular customers, any business can benefit from their goods and services being sold on credit. It’s a sign of financial success, because it shows the business is selling a product/service customers want.

Problems occur when money from accounts receivable is due from unreliable customers. There are situations when customers can default on their payments, forcing businesses to accept this pending amount as a loss. A general rule is that the older a receivable gets, the less likely it will be collected in full.

According to Investopedia, “businesses base their financial reporting on the assumption that not all of their accounts receivable will be paid by customers. Accountants refer to this portion as the allowance for bad debts”.

Just a surface look at the receivables of a firm is not enough to determine its financial health. Careful scrutiny and analysis by a skilled accountant is necessary to make the numbers meaningful.

Preventing bad debts

• Expand the payment options, make pay simpler

Provide your customers with more flexible and simple-to-use payment options. Make available every payment option ranging from electronic transfers, mobile credit card payments, PayPal etc. With time and enough feedback, your business will be able to map out what works best for everyone.

While choosing the payment options, think over the following: –

• Is this user-friendly? Think about it from everyone’s perspective.
• Is the service reliable? You don’t want your payments stuck mid-way.
• Is the portal worth the cost?

• Create additional incentives for on-time payments

There are different ways to motivate your customers to pay on-time. Free shipping, discounts, gifts, bonuses, loyalty programs, reward points or future credits for early payments, all of these can motivate your clients to make payments on time.

Alternatively, you could place penalties on late payments. Be careful however, that your customers are aware; ensure they understand and won’t object to the additional late fees.

Overcoming cash flow challenges is an ongoing problem for any small and growing company. By understanding accounts receivables, you improve your business’ ability to maintain a steady cashflow.

Outsourcing Accounts Receivables Makes Your Business Smarter – How?

Time – one of the most precious elements for any business to grow and survive. To maximize the efficiency of your business, any business owner and his employees must make efficient use of this resource. Yet again, there are also those day-to-day activities that drain you off your energy and time. With fewer employees carrying a huge workload, businesses need to get creative, allowing themselves to make the most of their time and financial resources.One such way to have your team more focused toward their specialized areas or work will be to get the accounts receivable services outsourced to a reliable firm. The benefits of which are huge.

You save time and money:

When hiring a third party to handle your accounts, the need of having a team sitting at your own office is automatically checked off. Your business finds no need to purchase all those expensive equipment and spend thousands of dollars on salaries of full-timers. You can then use your time and finance towards newer facilities, business expansion or promotional activities.

You get improved accounts receivable services:

Outsourcing the accounts receivable services will help a firm collect payment in a faster and timely manner. The advanced electronic billing solutions and payment options can be used for faster payment collection as well as processing of data. Whether through mobile credit payments or electronic transfers, customers can pay you even before their accounts reach the due date.

You need not chase defaulting payers:

These outsourcing companies often chase delinquent payers for you so you can focus on taking your company to heights that you have always wanted it to reach. Having the security of keeping someone in charge of leftover payments can be a huge advantage and a cause for greater peace of mind.

You can concentrate on growth:

Letting someone else process all your accounts receivable allows your staff more time to focus on what is really important for your business. They can concentrate on having your customers satisfied and thus help your business grow.

If you are a business owner who is dissatisfied with the current accounts receivable percentages, try trusting an accounts receivable service for a change. Outsourcing their accounts receivable management to a Receivables Management firm can be one of the best solutions recommended for business to improve their cash flow, thereby freeing up important administrative time. It helps your business focus on the more crucial aspects of their core management.

Why Invoice Processing Service Helps Boost Your Business

Invoice processing service is an essential accounting task which you seldom find interesting. Interviewing and hiring a full time professional who has mastered manual invoice processing is difficult. In short, you must be lucky enough to find an experienced accountant who can manage invoice efficiently and identify the blunders, if there is any. He/she will give you tailor-made results based on your organizational needs. This recruitment process will indeed consume a lot of your time. Hiring someone full time will bring on you the expense of his/her regular salaries.

Another way to check your invoice is by using invoice processing software. This enables businesses to obtain the best results within a short span of time. However, the software is expensive and as such, most small and mid-sized business owners cannot afford to purchase it.

The Need for Outsource Invoice Processing

It is important to analyze all invoices for determining the exact amount of profit that the business is generating. Small companies can expand their business by taking proper care of their finances. Besides, you should hand over the responsibility of managing invoice to an experienced accountant who can help your business make greater profits over time. Every business has its accounts department; however, it is sometimes a wiser decision to outsource your invoice processing service to deal with financial dealings and transactions of the company. This will enable you to save your hard-earned money and ledger costs.

Different Activities Included within Invoice Processing Services

• Evaluate business orders and invoices
• Remove data information from listed items and header
• Look at cashing and handling process
• Maintain track of every business transaction
• Manage receipt of e-invoices and evaluate invoice receipts

 Advantages of Invoice Processing

Read to know some advantages of getting an invoice processing service provider involved.

• Professional help: By hiring an invoice processing service provider, you get some of the best services for your business. There are efficient accountants who help you get the right revenue report and overcome all worries.

• Privacy and accessibility: Invoice processing service providers strictly follow a specific privacy policy on such matters in order to manage the rules and regulations of the business. Encryption and multiple password protection secure your data assuring heightened confidentiality. You can readily access your data as and when you feel the need to do so.

• Scrutinized report: After invoice evaluation process is done, you need an analyzed report of the present status of invoice. Hire an outsourced accountant who can provide you with the most accurate invoice report.

Invoice processing service, is crucially important for any business. You can either have it done in house or by some outside firm; the choice will depend solely on the need of your organization and the budget set aside for the same. It is advisable that you choose a reputable company where the professionals use the latest technology and multi-utility software. The charges must also be affordable; you just can’t have them burn a hole in your pocket.

Virtuous Bookkeeping is a reputable accounting service provider for both small as well as medium statured business organizations. The firm is managed by professionals who have extensive knowledge in Quickbooks, Freshbooks, Xero and Wave. Having offices in Canada, India and the Philippines, it delivers bookkeeping services such as Payroll processing; Bank and Credit Card Reconciliation; Invoice processing, Accounts Payable & Receivable and Monthly Financial report generation. It aims to be a virtual accounts manager by helping business owners outsource tedious, non-value-added activities and thus save their valuable time. Clients are given assurance of data security, multiple password-protection and encryption. Strict internal vigilance is also applicable in full swing. The firm works on full time, part time or hourly rate and boosts business revenue with the help of outsourced accounting services.