Do you know what the world’s largest bird, the ostrich, and some business owners have in common?
When it comes to facing their most-feared problems, they hide their heads in the sand, hoping that the problem will go away.
Our two subjects are avoiding completely different problems, but both are daunting: predatory lions and bookkeeping. Although ostriches don’t actually hide their heads in the sand and not all business owners are afraid of bookkeeping, the strategy of avoiding your problems this way does more harm than good. Sorting out your bookkeeping is best done sooner rather than later. By having your business’s bookkeeping in order, you are setting yourself up for the long term.
A few reasons why business owners avoid their bookkeeping tasks include having limited time to devote, a lack of interest in bookkeeping, or a lack of skills to do it themselves. A survey conducted by TD Bank cited in an article by Entrepreneur.com stated that bookkeeping was the least favorite business task of 58 percent of business owners. Furthermore, those business owners that work more than 60 hours per week specifically mentioned how draining of a task bookkeeping can be.
Rather than avoiding the task, some business owners will do the bookkeeping themselves even if they are not qualified to do so. To save money on outsourcing the work or to have more control over their company are two of the top reasons why a business owner will do their bookkeeping themselves. When it comes to saving money by doing your bookkeeping yourself, the savings of outsourcing your bookkeeping greatly outweigh the costs of the repercussions of avoiding the issue or doing it yourself when you do not have the appropriate skills to complete the task.
In addition to bookkeeping services, the professionals to whom you are outsourcing can also assist you with things such as payroll, bill paying and filing taxes. Issues with taxes can be a problem in and of themselves by bringing about costly audits by the IRS. By having detailed bookkeeping done, business owners can better monitor the status of their business to see if it is shrinking, growing, or stagnant. Even if a business is making money consistently, poor bookkeeping practices can still lead to downfall. The overall theme to the benefits of having professional bookkeeping done is to grant more time to business owners to devote to other factors of their business.
If you’re a business owner and the thought of your bookkeeping responsibilities makes you want to bury your head in the sand like an ostrich, we at Clarity Finances are here to help.