Why everyone should appreciate the person that does the business’s books.

A few weeks ago the bookkeeping team were discussing the difficulty of communication with some clients.  All accounting requires a partnership between the business owner and their accountants.  There are things we need you, the client to do so we can complete things at our end and this all works when information flows easily both ways.  The observation arose that if I or Steph email some clients (naming no names) we are much more likely to get a response.

The phenomena points to how the work of the bookkeeping team is perceived compared to the accounts or business development team.  But in our opinion this view is flawed, hence this blog which will attempt to dismantle the perception.

Bookkeeping is the backbone

The truth is that every other function of an accounting practice depends on the bookkeeping.  If we need to do your accounts, first we need your bookkeeping to be up to date.  If we need to do your tax return, first we need the bookkeeping.  If we want to do tax planning, you guessed it, we need your bookkeeping.  If we want to see how the business is performing, there’s nothing to look at if the bookkeeping isn’t done.  Even if you want to do a budget and predict the future, it is ten times easier if the bookkeeping is done and we can see current balances and costs.

In other words, nothing, bar nothing, can be done without it.  It is the very first thing we get working smoothly with new clients, knowing that everything else is on hold until we do.

The reason it doesn’t seem so important is that it is not an event, it is a system running in the background.  Like good health you only notice it when you lose it.  

A few years ago I developed a bad back.  I used to play football, tennis and go for the occasional run.  It all stopped and every day I rue not giving my back more love and attention when it was in good health.   Bookkeeping is the same, messed up books will bring pain to your business every single day.

It’s not easy

Something else that people don’t realise is how much of a skill bookkeeping is.  To the uninitiated it seems easy but it isn’t.  When people do their own bookkeeping the balance sheet mostly ends up a mess.  The bank balance is wrong, the debtors and creditors are wrong, the fixed assets are full of expenditure that should be in the Profit and Loss.  This is because people are generally completely blind to the double entry part of double entry bookkeeping.

What is worse is that sorting out the mess is at least three times more time consuming compared to doing it right in the first place.  At some point soon we are going to start charging more for people who do their own bookkeeping.  It seems cruel but experience tells us that it is double the work because of the tidying up we have to do before we can even start what we are meant to be doing.

Good bookkeepers are hard to find

No-one ever got rich bookkeeping, so you are looking for someone who is not in it for the money.  No-one ever gets much kudos as a bookkeeper either.  It’s not the kind of job that will have people hanging off your every word at a cocktail party.  

Thankfully there are people who do care about doing the work well nevertheless.  They are the kind of people who want things to be tidy, who notice and care that a bill was paid twice, who fret about the penalty that might arise if the VAT is late, who will remind you to dig out the VAT record that will keep the bill to a minimum.

If you find someone like that (and we are very blessed with the team at Co-) you should value them.  They are performing an invaluable service to you and your business.

Love thy bookkeeper.

Answer their emails!