How frustrating it is when you ask your bookkeeper for a report or some crucial piece of information and they can't provide you with an answer? Maybe they truly don't know the answer or they are stressed out over their workload. The bottom line is that they are behind on the books. Many bookkeepers lack the motivation to get better at their jobs. They have no reason for wanting to be more efficient. One thing you should do is to make sure your bookkeeper keeps up and the best way to do that is clearly communicate your expectations to them. If you need to see an accurate profit and loss by the 5th of the month make sure your bookkeeper knows that. If you need bills entered every Wednesday and the checking account balanced to the most recent daily balance let your bookkeeper know.

But do be mindful that when you first engage in business with a bookkeeper, that if there are problems with your books due to the previous bookkeeper or there is a delay in getting the data transferred or information/data sent through from the previous bookkeeper or accountant, that these factors will delay the process in the beginning, but if you have a great bookkeeper you will see this hurdle will smooth out very quickly. So don't be too hesitant at first, give them a chance to help make better processes for your business. If you find deadlines are not being met after 3 months of engaging the bookkeeper, then you have reason to question why.

Your bookkeeper should be bringing ideas to the table to improve your business. A bookkeeper probably knows more about the financial state of the business than the owner does. A small business bookkeeper is so heavily involved with the day to day financial transactions that they have a certain intimacy with the books that others might not have. Your bookkeeper does not have to rely on feelings regarding where money is coming from or going to, they know. If you are unsatisfied with your profits you can either cut back on expenses or increase income; and your bookkeeper knows in which area you have been screwing up and need to improve. If your bookkeeper doesn't approach you with ideas on ways to improve your business and cash flow, I would be worried they don't know what they are really doing. The only time you wouldn't expect this of a bookkeeper, is if you are doing absolutely great in business and there is simply no way to improve on your great business skills.

This is one of the most basic bookkeeping tasks for any business. Why? It is your check-and-balance system. It is the way you know if you have everything in your financial system that should be there - nothing more or less. These should be done regularly and there should be a record of every reconciliation. This shows your cleared and outstanding checks, deposits and all other transactions, providing a great snapshot of your business transactions.

So many new clients complain about the outrageously high accountant bills. Sometimes an accountant's bill can be high because you are asking them to do bookkeeping work. If you don't have a bookkeeping system in place and just hand your accountant a box of receipts you will have a very high bill. Other times a high bill is due to poor bookkeeping, If your accountant is given a set of books that are unorganised and unbalanced, then they will have to review and complete the information to be able to get the figures from your books that they need. That is work that your bookkeeper should be doing & if they are doing your books right, it shouldn't take more than an hour for your accountant to do your end of year tax unless you have a complex situation to content with. A great bookkeeper will work with your accountant to ensure the best possible outcome that saves you money at EOY process's with the accountant. Your hard earned money should be kept in your pockets not the accountants.

I actually had a guy that I have just taken on say to me regarding his bookkeeper, "I had a woman doing the books for me but I don't think she knew what she was doing". He let the thought run through his head for over 6 months before doing something, I am now in the process of fixing up major problems for him, but it may be too late to avoid the penalties for failure to comply with legislation. If you are questioning whether your bookkeeper knows what they are doing, then the chances are pretty good that they don't know what they are doing. Don't be afraid to speak up and question their process's, a really good bookkeeper won't be afraid to explain this to you. Stay involved in your bookkeeping process after all if you don't know when deadlines are due and the likes of other things, how can you question something you don't know is about to happen and you won't know if your bookkeeper knows what the heck they are doing.

I believe it's important for my clients to have some sort of understanding when deadlines are due and for what for, then if I am not meeting those deadlines then they are able to question me as to why not. Instead of finding out when they receive penalties from the relevant authorities.

If you are using an outsourced bookkeeping service or a part-time bookkeeper, it is frustrating when they don't answer their email or return phone calls. If you notice a long lag in response time from your bookkeeper to your email enquiries then you should ask them why. Maybe they have too many clients, maybe you are not important to them or maybe they are just not responsive to email. As a business owner when you have questions about your bookkeeping it is important that you get a timely response to your enquiries.

Sometimes it is out of their control but if you never get a reason to why it was delayed, then there was nothing other than their lack of consideration to responding to you in a timely manner.

Your bookkeeper should be giving you feedback on your financial reports. At the very least they should have some comments on your P&L and balance sheet. Like i said earlier in the post your bookkeeper has a deep intimacy with your business financials that can only be obtained by handling the books day in and day out. With that deep knowledge of your books they should be able to give you some sort of feedback on your financial reports. I ensure my clients are updated on how things are going and get copies of reports at least quarterly.

If you ask to see a profit & loss statement, a bank detail report, or any type of banking or financial document and you get an attitude in response, this is a red flag. No one should be so protective of his or her work that you cannot review it. If you are met with such resistance, the reason might be that your books are a complete mess and the bookkeeper does not want to get fired. Your should not even have to ask, you should have full access to your records at all times. Another item to note is that you and your bookkeeper may have different ways of communicating.

The reconciliation is a comparison between your records and those of the bank. If you see reconciliation adjustments, your bookkeeper is doing something wrong. A bookkeeper should aim to NEVER have an adjustment because that means he or she did not account for something properly. Instead of giving and saying, "Oh well, I missed something", a great bookkeeper makes sure they find the error and enter it into the system correctly. I often see forced adjustments made when the owner or bookkeeper isn't detail orientated.

I've seen descriptions like, "Opening balance?" before. There is NO reason for a question mark here! (NOTE - Opening balance IS an appropriate description especially when you are first starting your accounting tool or converting.) Regularly review your transaction descriptions so you really get a sense if your bookkeeper knows what he or she is doing.