Virtual Bookkeeping Service: 5 Key Advantages

“I love doing my own bookkeeping!” said no entrepreneur, ever.

Enter: virtual bookkeeping—the easiest, quickest, and cheapest way to offload this loathsome task onto someone else. Best of all, you’ll never even have to look that poor soul in the eye.

In all seriousness, virtual bookkeeping has a unique set of advantages that differ from traditional bookkeeping methods. In this article, we’ll cover each of those advantages in detail and explain why they’re ideal for small- and medium-sized businesses.

1) Find the Best Person for the Job, Not Just the Closest Person

With traditional bookkeeping, you have a few choices. You can hire an in-house employee who manages the bookkeeping in the office each day, often along with other admin tasks. They might be good at admin but have little or no formal training in bookkeeping. Or, you can hire a local outsourced bookkeeper who drives to the office and sits at a desk and does their work in your office.

This can be extremely limiting, as in either case employers are forced to choose from a pool of candidates who live within commuting distance. With virtual bookkeeping, however, everything is done electronically and finances are managed off-site. It opens up a whole new world of opportunities wherein employers can choose a bookkeeper based on their qualifications rather than their location.

2) Save money

According to salary.com, the average hourly wage for a bookkeeper in the U.S. is $21. If employed full-time, that equates to roughly $3,360 per month, not including the cost of medical, dental, vision, 401(k), or other employer-sponsored benefits.

Or again, you can hire a local outsourced bookkeeper, who will typically charge anywhere from $35 to $90 per hour to come and sit in your office. But paying hourly is a bad idea! The hourly contractor is directly incentivized to spend more hours on your project because more hours means more pay.

You as the owner have the exact opposite goal and you’d also like to know exactly how much to expect to pay each month. You don’t want to pay for commuting time, slow typing, fixing problems or the “long way” of doing something when the short way would have been just fine. These are all issues you see with local bookkeepers.

For comparison sake, our flat-rate virtual bookkeeping services range from $199/mo for small businesses to $399/mo for large businesses. That’s a fraction of the cost of hiring a full-time in-house bookkeeper and without any of the issues just covered from a local outsourced bookkeeper.

3) Save space

Compensation aside, in-house bookkeepers also need adequate room to work, which can pose a problem if space is limited. This may also mean investing in a desk, chair, and other office supplies. If you don’t give them a good, quiet, organized spot to work then guess what happens? Yep, they take longer to do the job, which means it costs you more hours and more dollars!

4) Get a team

When you hire a virtual bookkeeping firm, you gain access to a whole team of professionals; not just one person. That means you’ll never have to worry about an in-house employee calling in sick, as there will always be someone else available to pick up the slack or answer any questions you may have. Additionally, most bookkeeping firms also have business consultants and certified CPAs on staff, which can help you with everything from filing taxes to developing growth strategies.

5) Better tech

Fast, accurate, and secure bookkeeping requires access to top-of-the-line software and equipment. These tools don’t come cheap, but are necessary for precise computing and protecting sensitive information. For small businesses working within a limited budget, these resources are often unaffordable. For a local outsourced bookkeeper you will often find them still using old school paper filing and outdated software tools. However, when you hire a virtual bookkeeping service, you don’t pay any upfront costs for these tools but you will get access to the most current and updated versions of the tech needed to do the job.

Making the switch to virtual bookkeeping is understandably a bit daunting for those who are used to traditional bookkeeping methods. However, upon learning about the cost savings, many businesses come to the conclusion that they simply can’t afford not to make the change. At CapForge, we promise to make the transition as easy as possible by guiding you through the process and answering any questions you have. To schedule a free consultation, please call us at (858) 633-3573 or email us at info@capforge.com.