Your primary reason for not hiring a bookkeeper is most likely “I can’t afford it.” But here’s the thing: Doing your own bookkeeping will likely be even more costly.
In this article, we’ll compare the actual cost of hiring a bookkeeper to the costs you might incur if you did everything yourself. The time you spend on bookkeeping is not genuinely free. It’s easy to think of your own time as “free,” but if you could earn money with it, it’s far from it.
determine the direct cost of your bookkeeping
There comes a time in your business life when you must decide which tasks are worth delegating to someone else. For example, if you bill clients at $85 per hour and your bookkeeping takes you four hours per month, hiring a bookkeeper and using those four hours for billable client work will net you more money.
Let’s compare the costs of doing it yourself versus hiring a bookkeeper.
Keeping your own books: $85 per hour x 4 hours = $340
Hiring a professional bookkeeper costs starting from $150 per month
Start tracking how much time you actually spend on bookkeeping to do your own calculation. Then, using an online calculator, determine how much your time is worth. If the value of your time exceeds the cost of bookkeeping, hiring a professional is worthwhile.
If you pay for tax software, that’s an extra cost to consider when figuring out your refund. In the previous example, adding $30/month for cloud accounting software to “doing your own bookkeeping” made hiring a bookkeeper (like Countick ) cheaper by $100/month.
read more: how to choose the right bookkeeping software for your business
determine the indirect cost of your bookkeeping.
If you are not billing client hours, you may not lose direct dollars by doing your own Bookkeeping, but you may miss out on indirectly growing your business. Are you a great marketer? Are you good at cultivating customer relationships? When you spend time on bookkeeping, you are not doing the other things that will help you grow your business.
Hiring a bookkeeper is worthwhile if you estimate these indirect revenue generators will bring in at least $121/month.
Time is money. Don’t waste your time doing your own bookkeeping.
Allow Countick to get your books up to IRS standards and off your to-do list. Reclaim valuable time for tasks that are important to your business.
Get a Month of Free Bookkeeping!
three ways that a bookkeeper can help you save money
A bookkeeper can save you money and free up your time to grow your business.
You will save money on taxes.
A good bookkeeper has the skills and knowledge to track all expenses correctly and thoroughly. This means they’re assisting you in taking advantage of all possible tax deductions and tracking everything correctly to avoid IRS fines at tax time.
Further read: The importance of accurate bookkeeping for tax filing
Accounting fees will be avoided.
Accountants charge significantly more than bookkeepers. If you aren’t confident that your DIY books are tax-ready, your accountant will charge you $150–400 per hour for work that a bookkeeper could have done.
The easier your books are to send to your CPA, the less expensive it will be to file your Taxes.
You will save your company by not burning out.
Bookkeeping is a time-consuming, detail-oriented job. When you’re already exhausted from working 60+ hour weeks, it’s easy for things to fall through the cracks. Not to mention that overworking can result in burnout, which means time away from your company and clients.
Having someone else do your books can relieve you of one more stressful task.
