Is your business growing?
As a small business owner, it’s incredibly gratifying to see your hard work paying off. After putting in countless long days, you finally begin to see the difference in your customer base, reputation, and profits.
As you scale up operations to meet the growing demand for your services, your financial records grow more complex.
If you’re beginning to lose track of your receipts, expenses, and other financial data, it might be time to seek professional bookkeeping services from a small business accounting firm.
What Is Professional Bookkeeping?
Professional bookkeeping involves the recording of financial transactions. This may include assigning credits and debits to various accounts and submitting journal entries that document financial events.
Bookkeeping is separate from—but closely related to—accounting. Bookkeeping can also be viewed as a component of accounting. At Stratlign, bookkeeping is one of our primary accounting services, along with payroll services and tax preparation & filing.
Here are a few ways that professional bookkeeping services can help your small business stay organized and scalable.
Budgeting
As your business grows, so does the importance of budgeting.
Scaling up involves projections and careful steps forward. However, it’s impossible to plan ahead if you don’t have a clear picture of where you stand today. Precise budgeting provides this much-needed clarity.
Some small business owners ignore budgeting or try to oversimplify their budget. According to a survey by Clutch, just 54% of small businesses used an official budget in 2021.
The truth is, a budget is essential—but it’s only a useful tool if it accurately captures a high level of detail.
Working with a professional bookkeeping service helps you create, maintain, and stick to a budget so that you can grow your business with confidence.
Identify Overspending Concerns
Thanks to accurate, clear, and up-to-date budgeting, professional bookkeeping services allow you to see how money moves in and out of your accounts in real-time.
As you scale your business, it’s easy to overspend. Overspending occurs when a business owner is unaware of a lower-priced alternative or uses more of a resource than their budget allows.
Common overspending areas for construction and trade companies include:
- Labor
- Utilities
- Marketing
- Waste and recycling
Numbers don’t lie, but they do reveal important truths. If your business is overspending in certain areas, your bookkeeping will clue you in. Then, you can adjust your spending or your projections accordingly.
Financial Data Insights
Bookkeeping is factual and straightforward.
However, while bookkeeping itself is not an analytical practice, bookkeeping data yields valuable financial insights and paves the way for financial analysis. Bookkeepers record and present key information that helps business owners make informed financial decisions.
The knowledge gained from well-run books helps business owners look ahead. Bookkeeping provides the foundation for:
- Forecasting and financial planning
- Hiring decisions
- Major purchase planning
- Decisions about expanding your business into new services, locations, or markets
When you receive bookkeeping services from a full-service accounting team, your books become a productive source of raw data. This data is seamlessly channeled into other financial administration areas, like payroll services, tax planning, and financial planning.
Avoid Underpaying or Overpaying Taxes
As your business scales, your tax situation changes. Your tax obligation grows and your filing becomes more complex.
If your books are disorganized or incomplete, tax filing is a major headache. First, you need to play bookkeeping catchup. Then, you can try to make sense of your filing.
When you work with professional bookkeepers, your records are always in order. Tax preparation becomes a smooth and ongoing process, rather than a last-minute scramble.
When accountants assist with your bookkeeping and tax filing, you’re less likely to make a costly overpayment or a risky underpayment.
Get Professional Bookkeeping Services for Your Small Business
At Stratlign, we’re proud to support the growth of small and medium-sized businesses. We love to play our part in your success story by taking tasks like bookkeeping, payroll, and tax prep off of your busy schedule.
Here’s what you’ll gain from professional bookkeeping services:
- More time for your essential operations
- Relief from doubt concerning the accuracy of your financial records
- Financial clarity and insights that help guide your path forward
We specialize in the construction and trade industries. We’re honored to be a part of the hard-working teams that provide important services to their communities.
To learn how Stratlign can help your business manage bookkeeping, financial planning, and accounting, contact our team today.
