Who spends 8 hours a week doing their accounts?

I heard an advert recently which said you can save 8 hours a week by using their software.  If you are a small business I am sure you will not spend 24+ hours a month doing your accounts.  That is a large proportion of your available working time, or of your leisure time.  If you are a larger business with a lot of accounting transactions then you are most likely to have an employee to do your accounts for you on a part-time or full-time basis and of course that may well take 8 hours or more each week.  

The software company will have been talking about the time you spend raising invoices to your customers, recording receipts, recording expenses, reconciling one or more bank accounts and possibly a credit card account too.  Those are the main tasks which need to be done frequently to keep your accounts up to date.  You may also have payroll too which will add in some time and this may or may not have been considered in the advert.

Time is always lacking for business owners.  There is usually a never ending list of tasks to be done but, unless you love accounts like we do, the accounts are likely to be pushed aside to do the tasks you enjoy more.  You know it is important to keep your accounts up to date but you just never seem to get to that task on the list.  

Bookkeepers are there to support your business with the accounts tasks you just never get around to.  Hopefully you are finding time to invoice your customers as soon as a job is done - the quicker you invoice the quicker you should have the money in your bank.  After all a sale is not a sale until you have been paid!  

But of course there are several other accounts tasks to be done and we make life easier for the businesses we work with by taking over these accounting tasks.  We ensure we have correctly addressed invoices or receipts for the business expenses, we make sure that all expenses are included in the accounts and the bank accounts are fully reconciled.  Once we know we have everything for the month then we can produce a Profit and Loss report for the month and for your financial year so far which will show you where your spending is, how much money has been earned to cover that spending and whether you are left with a profit or a loss.

We know that each business owner we work with has felt a sense of relief when we have taken on this role for them.  Whilst some business owners are more than capable of doing their own accounts, they lack the time, and other business owners just know its not their "thing".  Whatever the reason we will support the business with regular bookkeeping through each financial year, providing your nominated accountant with the accounts data and other information they need to prepare your limited company, partnership or sole trader accounts.

So if you are lacking time or inclination to keep your accounts up to date or are just starting a business and know accounts is not where your strengths lie then please give us a call.  You will find us friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. 

We provide bookkeeping support at least once a month, VAT returns submitted well before the due date and can offer payroll too if needed.  We also won't spend 8 hours a week doing your accounts as we work efficiently and can usually significantly reduce the time currently being spent on your accounts.  And we can help you to become more efficient with the accounts tasks only you can do.