Bookkeeping, Elderly Bill Pay, Daily Money Management
Bookkeeping, Elderly Bill Pay, Daily Money Management
Whatever your business, industry or focus, there are a zillion things you need to know or learn – develop expertise in – to succeed.
Restaurant proprietors, retail store owners, construction, manufacturing, sales, marketing – the foundation of your success is knowing the intricacies of your product, market and clientele.
On top of all that, a business must stay compliant in their industry, adhere to business practice standards, and have access to accurate, current information to determine the health and well being of their business.
Two types of professionals practice across industries to provide you with the information you need to manage your business and comply with government standards – Accountants and Bookkeepers.
Bookkeeper
Bookkeepers record the financial transactions of the organization (Money coming into the company, Money going out of the company and make sure funds are properly accounted for.) A bookkeeper keeps track of the day-to-day transactions in a business like sales, bill payment, and payroll. Their role is more administrative, turning raw data into useful information and reports used by business owners, managers and accountants.
The scope of the job varies from one company to the next. A bookkeeper’s duties may include:
Accountant/CPA
An accountant typically goes beyond what a bookkeeper does to analyze and interpret the financial data and advise the company about it. Their role is more analytical than administrative. Common duties of an accountant include:
Accountants follow accounting standards and stay up to date with regulations to make sure a company is in compliance with internal and external guidelines. Accountants provide the financial insight to advise the company in regard to financial decisions.
A bookkeeper records transactions, reconciles recorded transactions to source documents like receipts and statements and produces informative reports which can help you manage and improve your business. An accountant will help and advise you on managing taxes, what kind of corporation to set up and keep you in compliance with government and oversight organizations.
What does a business owner need:
The scope of the job varies from one company to the next. A bookkeeper’s duties may include:
Yes!
There different levels of involvement and oversight.
A bookkeeper is like your partner. You can discuss and negotiate ownership for different tasks. You can take on more of the tasks yourself while you are getting started and offload those tasks to a bookkeeper as your business grows and your time becomes more valuable elsewhere.
Accountants typically bill by the hour and, while the expertise they provide is valuable and necessary, you will want to use your accountant’s time as efficiently as possible.
An accountant like so many professionals are only as good as the information they are provided with and that information comes from your books. If your books are kept incorrectly or inaccurately, your accountant will not be able to do his job efficiently and your exposure and risk will increase.
Learning to record your business’s transactions yourself is very possible but can also be time consuming. Given the books must be as accurate, clean and as correct as possible to provide the proprietor , manager and accountant the information they need to steer your business as it grows, the question really becomes:
What perils and risks are you exposing your business to by trying to be an expert in too many things?
What are the real benefits you can achieve by having a well managed set of books?
How much is your time worth?
Your industry, needs, requirements and the size of your business determine the answer to that question.
In some cases, you may need a dedicated, internal bookkeeper. Some examples are construction and other project based industries which depend on accurate tracking and management of many customers, many vendors and considerable inventory.
In most cases, the number of customers, vendors and transactions are more manageable. Many businesses don’t have inventory. Some don’t have payroll or their payroll is manageable.
A dedicated internal bookkeeper will provide you with the kind of access and insight to your business and may very well be worth the expense.
However, working with a virtual bookkeeper is often the best way to get the benefits, insight and protection you need without having to incur the cost of another member of your staff. Virtual bookkeepers can tailor their services and costs to provide you with what you need today and can grow along with you.
Yes.
For example, the medical provider industry.
There are very strict rules and regulations protecting patient information. Did you know most accounting and bookkeeping software is NOT HIPAA compliant? As a result, you should never have patient information stored in your account system and patient data can’t be tracked like customers can in other businesses.
Where many businesses have customers, products and vendors – medical providers are often paid by insurance companies and health plans. You would know hire an auto mechanic to perform surgery because the knowledge, expertise and experience required in the two fields are vastly different. The same is true for medical billing. The knowledge and expertise required to efficiently bill and collect funds for medical treatments from medical plan providers is vast, complicated and requires a very deep understanding to process medical payments and track collections.
Medical billing and revenue cycle management is a practice all in itself and you want a well trained resource processing those transactions on staff or outsource to a reputable, experienced, educated and certified organization.
However, while medical billing and revenue cycle management are critical specialists to healthcare providers – their visibility stops with medical billing, collections and revenue management. There is so much more to running a practice/business that needs to be done. Bill payment, invoicing, reconciliation, taxes, payroll – these are all tasks that need to be performed. That’s where the bookkeeper comes in. They are the specialists in all those other tasks and work hard to help you keep your practice healthy and strong.
Collaborative partnerships add value for businesses like medical providers. For example, Grey Fedora partners with ANO Revenue Cycle Management to provide comprehensive financial management solutions.