Top Things You Should Do When Hiring a Bookkeeper for the First Time

If you just started up your own business, you might need help with the bookkeeping process if you want to keep track of profits, expenses and more. Alternatively, even though you might have had your own business for a while, you might have just decided to hire a bookkeeper, since you might be struggling to handle your bookkeeping all on your own. In either case, if it's your first time hiring a bookkeeper, these are some of the main things that you should do.

Coordinate Software Programs

First of all, if you use a software program for things like tracking your profits and expenses, you should ask your bookkeeper if they are accustomed to working with this software program. Ideally, you and your bookkeeper will use the same software programs for tracking these things, since this will make it much easier for you to send reports and files back and forth to one another. If necessary, you may need to invest in another software program — such as the one that is recommended by your bookkeeper — to make things easier.

Give Them All of Your Documentation

If you have just started your business then you might have kept receipts for all of your start-up costs. This is a good thing, and you should be sure that you give all of these receipts to your new bookkeeper so they can start logging your expenses for the year right away. If your business has been operating for a little while, you might already have spreadsheets or documents that you drew up yourself or that one of your employees created. In any case, you will need to turn these over to your new bookkeeper, too.

Talk About Budget

Bookkeepers often charge for their work by the hour, so you will want to ask your bookkeeper how much they charge per hour and approximately how many hours they think they will have to dedicate to bookkeeping for your business. If you have a budget in mind of how much you want to spend on bookkeeping services each month, you should mention this to the bookkeeper to help ensure that you don't go over your budget. If you're working with a tighter budget, the bookkeeper might recommend that you do certain bookkeeping tasks yourself and use their services for more complex matters; this is something that the two of you should be able to work out.