Why You Should Hire a Bookkeeper to Help You Setup Quickbooks

Accounting software is a great tool that business owners can use to handle a wide array of financial tasks such as bills payment and other payroll functions. If you’ve recently invested in a QuickBooks subscription, you may have run into some setup challenges that you need help with. In order to overcome those issues as efficiently as possible, getting help from a bookkeeper is not a bad idea.

Tailoring a Chart of Accounts to Your Needs

Every business needs a chart of accounts in order to create the reports necessary to monitor your business’s financial status, such as the balance sheet and income statement. These reports are crucial as they help you understand your profitability. Although QuickBooks software can provide  a range of account sets that are readily available for you, it is still important to note that this chart of accounts can be tailored to the type of business that you operate. A bookkeeper can give you suggestions on which changes you should make to your chart of accounts that is most specific to your business. Listed below are some of the examples:

// Inventory:

If you own a retail business, then you know how important it is to manage your inventory. However, you may have a difficult time deciding whether different inventory accounts are necessary. For example, if your store sells sporting goods, you may ask yourself whether you need an account for each brand of bats or whether you can have a single on account that includes all brands of bats. An accountant or bookkeeper can help you with this.

// Fixed assets:

Each fixed asset may have a different rate of depreciation and monitoring the total depreciation expense on each asset is essential for every business. Luckily, a bookkeeper can easily help you set up each fixed asset in QuickBooks so that the depreciation expense is posted automatically each month.

// Unnecessary Accounts:

For your chart of accounts to operate properly, there shouldn’t be any unused accounts in the system. For example, a retailer does not need accounts associated with manufacturing. A bookkeeper who knows about your business can help you get a clean chart of accounts by getting rid of all the unnecessary accounts.

The Process of Posting Opening Balances

After you’re done setting up your chart of accounts, you must post your opening balance sheet account balances into the software. This sheet needs to include your asset, liability, and equity balances for a specified date. This process is important as your opening account balances are the start of your QuickBooks accounting, and every transaction you make after the starting date will affect your financial reporting. There may be some people who make minor errors during the data entry process which, in turn, can mess with the whole reporting system. If you want to avoid that mistake, help from a bookkeeper can make sure that everything is set up correctly.

Reports That Serve You Well

Different types of reports are useful for different kinds of businesses, depending on size and current financial standing, as well as industry. For example, if cash flow is the biggest concern for your business, then a report on cash collections and amounts due by customers is the most useful for you. You can enlist the help of your bookkeeper to work out which report is best for your business.

Takeaway

In summary, for you to get the most value from your QuickBooks subscription, you may have to consider hiring a bookkeeper when you are at the stage of setting up the software. This will get you set up and off to a proper start while getting to reap all the optimal benefits of using QuickBooks.

Totally Booked offers bookkeeping by QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors based out of NYC. Get in touch today to see how we can help!

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