Picking the right bookkeeper for you

As you might be able to tell I just opened by doors to providing bookkeeping services after a about 10 years in the accounting industry. One thing I found leading up to this is that there are a LOT of "bookkeepers" out there with little or no experience. I was surprised to find out how unregulated the industry is compared to the accounting industry.

Many of the "gurus" online telling people they can be a $100k per year bookkeeper with no experience make it a point to tell their students: "bookkeepers are in so much need its likely they wont even ask you for your experience, my first few clients didn't and I'm doing great!". While that might be the case I certainly wouldn't want my part time or full time bookkeeper learning on the job when it comes to my business and neither should you.

You might be thinking the bookkeeping and accounting industries are the same but they are slightly different. While one is the building block of another, you don't need any certain degree or number of credit hours to become a bookkeeper. Whereas with Accounting to get a job as a first year associate you'll at least need a bachelors in accounting. To get to the CPA level you need 150 credit hours of studies, plus work experience just to qualify to take the four sections of the CPA exam. So, what should you ask to find out about your future bookkeeper?

You should interview them as you would any other employ you might bring on. Ask how long they've been doing bookkeeping, do they have some work experience in the real world? What certifications might they hold? (quickbooks, netsuite, sage, peachtree). There is a CPB you can get which should help you choose as well. A CPB is a Certified Public Bookkeeper.  These folks are held to higher standards much like CPA's are to the accounting industry.

You might also ask them some situational questions when it comes to some of your business concerns.  Are you having problems tracking expenses or invoices or inventory? Ask them a hypothetical on what you come across and how they'd handle it. 

The point I'm trying to make is not to flush out fly by night bookkeepers but to not just go with anyone because it would help your small business to get a warm body to help out with the bookkeeping. The potential bookkeeper should be asking questions about your business as well to know if you'd be a good fit.

Overall, take your time ask lots of questions, see if they ask questions of you, and make a decision from there. Make sure you interview a few to get a feel for things and then you can likely negotiate fees of your new outsourced bookkeeper near the end of the process.