The Blog
Practical writing on bookkeeping, accounting staffing and the work that keeps a business running — for owners doing their own books, and for firms trying to add capacity without adding headcount.
For business owners
A bookkeeper keeps the books current all year. An accountant turns them into decisions. A CPA is a licensed accountant who can do a few things nobody else can. Most small businesses need the first and the third, and grow into the second.
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For monthly management reporting, accrual usually tells the truer story about how the business actually performed. Cash tells you whether you can make payroll. You want both, and you should know which one you are looking at.
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Gusto is built for you to run payroll yourself. ADP is built to be run with an account team and to keep working when you are much larger. Under 25 people, that difference decides it.
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Someone else can run most of your payroll cycle without ever touching your bank account. The preparation, chasing and reconciliation are delegable. Funding and final approval are not.
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Profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow, AR aging, AP aging. Five reports, each answering a different question, and one thing to look at first in each.
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Preparation work delegates well. Judgment does not. Here is the operational line between what a tax prep support operator does and what the licensed professional owns, including the signature.
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Usually yes for AR chasing, and yes for AP data entry with one hard condition: payment authority stays with you. Here is how to tell whether your AP/AR is actually ready to hand over.
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Most late payments are not collection problems. They are invoicing problems that show up 45 days later. Here is the sequence that moves cash in faster without souring a single relationship.
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QuickBooks certification is Intuit's own credential confirming someone can operate the software competently. It is a real signal. It is not a signal about accounting judgment, and those are different things.
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Your bookkeeper needs to see and record everything. They do not need to move money, and they do not need your bank login. Those are two separate permissions, and most owners hand over both by accident.
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Both handle a small business's books competently. The real difference is who has to work in the file after you (your accountant, your bookkeeper, your future controller) and how easily you can hand it off.
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Most small-business AP processes work only because one specific person is holding them together in their head. Here is how to build one that keeps working after that person leaves.
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Start with transaction categorization and receipt chasing. Hold payment approvals and payroll submission until you have watched a full close. Here is the order that works.
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Usually the person did not get worse. The job got bigger. Here are the observable signs that the role has outgrown whoever is in it, and what to do about it.
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A year behind is a sequencing problem, not a willpower problem. Here is the order a catch-up actually has to run in, and where most owners get stuck.
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A close is eleven steps in a fixed order, and each one has a predictable failure. Here is the sequence, and what goes wrong at every stage.
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A freelance bookkeeper almost always works in month one. The cracks show up around month three, when your books stop being a project and start being a routine that has to happen whether or not one person is available.
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Screening runs in four stages: degree verification, QuickBooks certification, role-specific skills testing, and interviews. Here is what each stage actually checks and what it cannot tell you.
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Credentials, software depth, hours overlap, and what happens when the fit is wrong. Here is what to check before you hand anyone your chart of accounts.
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Yes, if access is scoped, agreements are signed before logins are issued, and you can see what is being done. The risk is real but it is administrative, and it is controllable.
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A part-time local hire looks cheaper on the job posting than a dedicated outsourced bookkeeper. Run the full cost (payroll taxes, benefits, software, turnover) and the comparison usually flips.
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Standard placement at TaskMasters is $2,200 a month for 40 hours a week of dedicated support, plus a one-time setup fee. Here is what moves that number, what it includes, and how it compares to the other ways of buying bookkeeping.
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