Automate Your Business With an Online Bookkeeper

One of the fastest and most affordable ways to automate your business is with an online bookkeeper.  The administrative side of your business can get mind-numbing and take a lot of time.  Beyond all the paperwork, it can suck your life away. 

But how do you offload the work without hurting your business?  A lot of people love the idea, but are scared that giving the work to someone else, especially an online bookkeeper, is too scary.  

Here's how you do it. 

Step #1:  Decide To Value Your Time

Your time is the most valuable thing that you own.  How you decide to trade it in will determine the end result of your life.  As a business owner you've signed up for a lot of work, but if you play your cards right, it's going to be worth it! 

How do you spend your time?  How much of it is spent on back-office accounting work?  If you're spending less than 5 hours a month, it's not a bad trade.  You're books are probably easy enough that it doesn't make sense to give them to someone else.  However, if you're getting into 10+ hours a month, that's a significant amount of your work week that could be spent elsewhere on more profitable activities.

How do you value your time?

Step #2:  Find a Reputable Online Bookkeeper

If you've decided that you'll be better of automating this part of your business, then it's time to find a reputable service provider.  There are a lot of good companies out there.  As you search, you'll want to look for several factors including: 

1. Size of firm
2. Years in business
3. Average client size 
4. Industry specialty
5. Capacity to take your account on

Step #3:  Ask The Right Questions

When you go shopping for an online bookkeeper, the first criteria is usually price.  Of course you'll want to get a good understanding of how their pricing structure works, but you'll also want to ask questions like the following: 

1. Will I work with one accountant or your whole team?
2. Are you located in The United States?
3. Do you re-outsource your work or do you do it yourselves?
4. What certifications do you have?
5. Do you have experience with my accounting software?
6. What timezone are you in?
7. What are your office hours?
8. How do I get documents to you?
9. What is your turnaround time?
10. What industries do you specialize in?

Step #4:  Make Sure There's and ROI

ROI stands for Return on Investment.  As a business owner, you want to make sure that you're not only getting a good deal, but that your money is being invested.  If you hire an online bookkeeper, the money that you get back from time saved and increased sales needs to be greater than the money spent. 

Step #5:  Make The Decision

If you have a positive ROI, then make the decision to move forward.  Anything you can do to automate your business will benefit your life.  The decision to get this responsibility off your plate can be extremely rewarding.