Bookkeeping Virtual Assistant

Bookkeeping is the process of recording all of a business’ financial transactions. It is an integral part of accounting and cannot be put off or compromised. Bookkeeping and accounting come hand in hand. Without a good base in the former, the latter cannot be accomplished accurately. Having poor bookkeeping means having bad financial data. This can be vastly detrimental both to business operations and to adherence to legal obligations like tax reporting.

One problem with bookkeeping is that recording each day-to-day transaction can take quite a bit of time. Hiring a full-on accountant to do the minutiae of bookkeeping is costly, but doing it yourself also takes up so much time that can be used to further the growth of your business. If you have a general administrative assistant, having them do the bookkeeping is one option. The problem there is that since they were not hired specifically for bookkeeping, they may not have experience with the relevant tasks beyond learning the basics in high school.

Hiring a bookkeeping assistant can save your business a lot of time and money and provide you with accurate financial records.

A bookkeeping assistant is someone who can focus on doing all the administrative bookkeeper tasks for you so that you can concentrate on other, higher-level aspects of your business. An assistant bookkeeper can keep track of all transactions going in and out of your business and catch any issues or inconsistencies.

However, hiring a full-time physical employee, especially for online businesses, can be an unnecessary additional cost, and limit the candidates a business can get to someone doing a job search for bookkeeping in just one geographical area. This is why hiring a virtual bookkeeping assistant can be the best, most cost-effective, and efficient way to go.

Virtual bookkeeping assistants do everything a face-to-face bookkeeping employee can do but without the associated costs. They don’t need office space, office equipment, transportation, or insurance. They are also generally more versatile in hours and levels of expertise, and come from a wider pool of candidates, crossing borders across the world so your business can get the most ideal candidate that fits your needs.

Balancing books isn’t a one task job. From entry-level to advanced, all bookkeepers must keep track of multiple tasks to complete their job well. Here are just some of the things a bookkeeping virtual assistant (VA) can do for you:

• Keep track of income and expenses

Bookkeepers should be able to record all money going in and out of your business in a timely and organized manner.

• Pay your bills

Your bookkeeper can keep track of your due dates and handle your accounts payable, so you don’t risk missing deadlines and incurring interest.

• Prepare and send invoices

Your bookkeeping VA can keep track of all of your accounts receivable, and churn out the proper invoices so your money flow can continue to be in tip-top shape.

• Follow up on payments

It’s not enough for them to passively send invoices, bookkeeping VAs should also keep track of receivable deadlines and follow up whenever someone pays your business late.

• Balance your books

A bookkeeping VA should be able to do bank reconciliations and other similar tasks to ensure that your records are clean.

• Stay on top of your sales tax 

A bookkeeping assistant can prepare your financial reports for sales tax filing, as well as submit the necessary documents you need for your annual taxes.

• Create financial statements

Bookkeepers can create profit and loss or balance sheet reports for your business, so you can see your business’ cash flow.

Bookkeeping is a time-consuming, meticulous process. Hiring a good bookkeeping VA means looking for a candidate with most of the following skills or qualities:

• Good with numbers

Bookkeeping VAs must deal with numbers constantly. If they are not good with numbers, then they run the risk of making more errors while encoding, or else be slow in their recordkeeping.

• An organized mind

It is important that any report about the business’ cash flow can be churned out quickly and accurately. A bookkeeping VA must be very organized so that they can easily access any information they need in a timely manner. They must also keep track of schedules of payments of the business and customers, and being organized is integral in staying on top of this.

• An eye for detail

Bookkeeping VAs must work meticulously because even making one small one-digit mistake will mean unbalanced books.

• Integrity

Bookkeepers are privy to a business’ sensitive financial information. They should therefore be trustworthy enough to keep this information confidential.

• Knowledge in accounting software like QuickBooks

A bookkeeping VA must be able to use the appropriate digital tools for keeping track of businesses’ cash flow. It’s not enough for them to be able to do bookkeeping tasks on paper, they should also be able to log their records in the business’ chosen digital repository.

Hiring a bookkeeping VA can be a chore. Your ideal candidate may not necessarily be on the platform where you decide to post your open positions, and might not have a job alert turned on at the time of your post. Partnering with a company like 20four7VA, with years of experience and many positive reviews online, can help prevent you from missing out on the perfect bookkeeping candidates.

20four7VA looks for the best candidates for you. Not just simple qualified bookkeeping VAs, 20four7VA can also look for candidates that suit your specific business needs. Whether part-time, full-time, entry-level, or advanced, 20four7VA can tailor their search and candidate shortlist just for you. On top of all of this, 20four7VA also helps you onboard your VAs and helps keep track of your VA’s performance.

You can book a FREE consultation today and be on your way to hiring the best Bookkeeping VA for you.