Are you ready for your Tax Return?

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While most people are just thinking about Christmas at the moment, if your self employed you may be looking further ahead to January and the dreaded Tax return. For some reason it always seems to creep on my quicker than expected and I always feel a little under prepared especially as I do my own tax return for my freelance work. For years I have been considering employing an accountant although they can be quite pricey but opting for a bookkeeping service as they are usually a little more budget friendly while still offering a lot of the advantages that an accountant would provide and here is why.  

Bookkeeping is among the most basic requirements of running a company, but it is also among the most complex and challenging parts of owning a business. Understanding why you need bookkeeping services and the cost of having them plays a very big hand in the growth of your company in the long term.

Bookkeeping and Accounting

Every small business requires a certain amount of bookkeeping, to begin with when establishing their business. The primary concern when starting is smaller responsibilities such as recording transactions and paying bills.

As the business begins to grow, more focus will be put on financial reporting which then leads to the requirement of direct oversight by a qualified professional in bookkeeping services in Manchester. Your accountant will help you put together financial intelligence to make sound business decisions, but the bookkeeper is the person who helps to provide all of the data to be able to make those decisions.

How Bookkeepers Keep the Fire Burning

A qualified bookkeeper takes on several responsibilities regarding your business finances. They are in charge of your financial books by keeping tabs on your expenditures and revenue and make records of transactions and collating the information to create a general financial forecast to help business owners drive their growth and fix problems in their profitability.

There are other smaller duties that bookkeeping services also cover, such as data entry, bill paying, inventory management, invoicing and maintaining vendor and client lists among many other areas.

Costs Involved

You save on the early days of your business by doing your minuscule bookkeeping. As time goes forward, the money your business loses from you not being front and centre by handling all the finances behind the scenes becomes more and more apparent.

The costs of outsourcing a bookkeeper will vary depending on certain factors such as their experience level, the type of service you require, and the amount of work involved in time. Some may also factor in the types of responsibilities that are involved regularly and your company's ability to support the service they provide.

Depending on the number of transactions that take place in your company, you may only need them once a month or less, or if your transactions range into the hundreds and thousands every day you may require them to be more regular every week to keep up with the work.

When you evaluate the cost of bookkeeping services in Manchester or somewhere local to your home, you are evaluating your company's worth not just now, but where you see it moving forward.