Top 3 Things Outsourced Bookkeeping Can Do for Your Business

Find a bookkeeping and controller services provider that can help you today and help you scale for tomorrow.

Congratulations. You’ve reached that welcome, if worrisome, milestone where your small business isn’t so small anymore. You and your staff no longer have the time to do everything that needs to get done. Bookkeeping, for instance.

Whether you’ve been doing it yourself or added it to a team member’s existing responsibilities, doing the books now requires a professional. The question is, should you hire an in-house staff member or work with an outsourced bookkeeping and controller services provider?

When weighing those options, consider the value a company can provide over an individual — if you find the right company. Outsourcing should accomplish these three things:

1. Help You Manage Your Success

As your business matures from the startup phase into a growth-stage company, it’s important to focus on the big picture. But it’s just as important to stay on top of the day-to-day details, particularly when it comes to finances. That’s where the right outsourced bookkeeping and controller services provider can really shine.

Using a cloud-based system that features the latest software, your provider can create an easy-to-read dashboard that allows you to monitor your key performance indicators at a glance. No need to worry that you’re basing an important decision on outdated information; real-time reporting is available, and you should insist your bookkeeping and controller services provider offer it.

By leveraging the latest technology, your outsourced bookkeeping and controller services provider can do more than tell you what your numbers are. They can also deliver insight into what those numbers mean. That’s invaluable for a growing company that needs help with things like aligning your chart of accounts with your goals and generating accurate cash flow forecasts.

2. Help You Protect Your Business

It’s possible, of course, to also get real-time reporting and financial insights from an in-house bookkeeper. But unless you’re planning to create an entire in-house department, you’ll be relying on an individual. That carries inherent risks. How do you keep up with the books if the bookkeeper is sick or on vacation? Or if they quit without notice? Depending on the timing, you could not only face a bookkeeping headache, but also run into compliance issues if you miss key filing deadlines.

And then there are the security concerns. A cardinal rule of fraud prevention is never to allow a lone employee to have access to multiple financial instruments, such as your checking account and accounts payable invoices. A good outsourced bookkeeping and controller services provider will furnish a team of professionals, ensuring segregation of duties and the appropriate checks and balances, along with backup in the event of absences. Moreover, the best providers have access to networks of experts in areas like DCAA compliance to address any industry-specific requirements you might have.

3. Help You Capitalize on Opportunities

Success is largely an attitude. As your business starts to grow, it’s important to focus on continuing that growth, not simply managing it. To do that, you need support systems that can scale right along with you, without the need to hire additional staff or invest in expanded infrastructure or high-end software.

If you need to scale up your team to pursue a short-term opportunity and then scale back once that opportunity has been seized — or if your business has seasonal cycles — you need a service provider that can scale up or down in lockstep. As a bonus, they can provide the financial insight that allows you to evaluate which opportunities are worth scaling up for — and which ones you should avoid.

Take Your Business to the Next Level

An outsourced bookkeeping and controller services provider can deliver the right level and range of services for your small business today and as your business continues to grow.

At Supporting Strategies, our experienced, U.S.-based professionals use secure, best-of-breed technology and a proven process to provide a full suite of bookkeeping and controller services. Are you ready to learn how you can move your business forward? Contact Supporting Strategies today.