Bookkeeping is one of those things that business owners should take seriously. If you know nothing about finance, then you might be wondering where to start. For this reason, hiring a bookkeeper is one of the first things that you should do as a business owner. Keep in mind that hiring a friend or relative who knows nothing about bookkeeping will be a recipe for disaster; you should make sure you use a qualified bookkeeper. Here are some tips that will come in handy when hiring a bookkeeper:
Availability
You need to ensure that you find a person who is dependable and available to keep your records up to date. If you want to get timely reports, the information should be input on a regular basis. If you hire a person who is always busy and has to squeeze in the bookkeeping job into his schedule, you might end up with shoddy records.
Familiarity
You need to hire a bookkeeper who is familiar with your job industry to make things easier. Moreover, a person who is familiar will provide better details and make the learning curve shorter. Although the fundamentals of bookkeeping apply to all industries, you will see that different specifics are required for dissimilar industries.
For instance, in the construction industry, job costing is required to understand productivity. On the other hand, retailers focus on the aspects that have something to do with inventory. Although having basic accounting knowledge is necessary, you need a person who is familiar with your industry.
Accountability
You need to hire a bookkeeper who will keep you accountable. If he comes across deposits and checks that he is not sure of, you want him to ask you questions and keep you accountable to ensure accurate record keeping. If you hire a person who is afraid to ask the right questions, he will end up coding everything as miscellaneous, which will not be good for your business.
Knowledgeability
You need to choose a person with some basic understanding of accounting and with a good picture of how everything will fit together. The difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant is that the latter has more training and can do an in-depth analysis. While you might not require an accountant in your staff, you need a person who knows the difference between expense accounts, equity income, and cost of goods sold.
Competency
Nowadays, you need somebody who can keep your records on a computer instead of books. This means that you should look for a bookkeeper with experience in using computer bookkeeping programs such as QuickBooks. During the interviews, you should ask as many questions as it takes to hire a competent person.
You should ask the following questions during the interview:
-How will you continue to improve your skills?
-Which companies or industries have you worked with in the past?
-How do you troubleshoot your problems?
-Which computer bookkeeping programs are you familiar with and how long have you been using them?
-Do you know the basic financial statements and their importance?
-How will you help me to remain accountable for record keeping purposes? Although some people might feel uncomfortable keeping their bosses accountable, it will be necessary in this case.
Hiring employees is a job that you should not take lightly, especially if you need a person to do your bookkeeping. If you do not have the right financial reports, you will not know how well or poorly your business is doing. The above tips will come in handy when hiring a bookkeeper to handle your books.