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General Accounting. Cash Management Improvement Act. Charge Card Administration. If you want your business to continue growing, you need to set up an accounting department structure that can handle an array of accounting duties and expand with your business. But as a small-business owner, there are times you need to make do with less.
Your accounting department structure will never look like your company softball team roster. Census Bureau collected such data. What does this have to do with billing? The longer it takes for your customers to be billed, the longer it takes for you to get paid.
You need to be paid so you can pay your employees and vendors. In addition to accuracy, timeliness is crucial for billing, so you want someone who is punctual and meets deadlines. Who should be doing it: As with billing and invoicing, accuracy and timeliness are paramount when it comes to accounts payable. Who should be doing it: When your business is very small two to three employees , you might be able to get away with having your accounts payable and receivable person handle payroll as well.
What makes a good payroll specialist? In addition to being punctual and meticulous, your payroll person also needs to work well with others to resolve inevitable issues. If your books are off, it means that something has gone wrong. Who should be doing it: In a way, every other task on this list ties into bookkeeping, so you need someone who is well-rounded, precise with numbers, and works well with others.
While billing is responsible for sending invoices and accounts payable is responsible for paying bills, your bookkeeper is ultimately responsible for recording and keeping track of all of those transactions and balances. Your bookkeeper will also be working with accounting software almost all the time, so they need to be proficient in whatever accounting program your business uses.
You also need to get W2s out to all of your employees so they can file their taxes on time. Who should be doing it: A professional. Staying on top of expenses and income throughout the year, and recording them properly in terms of their tax implications, makes a huge difference when tax time comes. Your bookkeeper should work side-by-side with whoever is in charge of tax preparation to ensure that they have everything they need to thoroughly and accurately prepare your tax return.
Automated invoicing: Say you have a client that orders 10 pounds of coffee every month. The first time they order you fill out an invoice template with all of their information, then you set it to send out the same day every month.
If they want to increase or decrease their order, skip a month, or cancel, all your billing specialist has to do is go in and change the settings. But the rest of the time, this invoice goes out like clockwork. So instead of looking for an accounting tool that also handles payroll, we recommend trying one of these tools that integrate with popular payroll apps to make life easier for your payroll specialist by automating things like direct deposit and taxes withheld.
Automated bookkeeping: Accounting software is bookkeeping software. Bookkeeping is baked into all accounting software, keeping a clean record of all of the money coming in and out of your business and flagging any discrepancies.
This allows your bookkeeper to act more as a gatekeeper, feeding data into the software and double-checking numbers rather than spending hour upon hour on tedious data entry and simple, repetitive math. A setup like this will have you covered for virtually every small-business accounting need, but there is room for flexibility.
On that same note, always err on the side of caution when it comes to getting professional help. Senior Content Writer Capterra, sharing insights about retail. Austin transplant. I love spending time outside with my dog or floating on the Colorado River in my inflatable kayak.
Comment by Andrew Conrad on Nov. Thank you for your very thoughtful and thorough response.
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