Traditional accounting requires three things: an accounting system, a bookkeeper and an accounting firm. All of these cost business owners money and time. First, you have to find the right accounting system, whether it is electronic or paper-based. Then, you have to learn the system or hire a bookkeeper to learn it for you. You still need an accounting firm for filing taxes and answering questions. What if you could reduce the three requirements to one?
Have you considered a virtual accounting service?
A virtual accounting service includes virtual bookkeeping as well as the professional expertise of an accountant.
A virtual company operates like a traditional firm, except it provides the service remotely. All records are stored remotely, and as the business owner, you have access to the information anytime.
Virtual accounting services are:
- Cost-Effective
- Efficient
- Convenient
- Secure
It’s an excellent choice to free you from the burden of daily bookkeeping tasks so you can focus on your business.
Cost-Effective
How much of your budget is spent on accounting software and associated updates?
If you do your payroll, the updates are most likely mandatory to receive the latest tax tables.
Depending on the complexity of the software, you may have to pay for installation and setup.
As the business owner, you could do the bookkeeping, but it does take time that may be better spent elsewhere.
If you decide to hire someone to do the bookkeeping, you must consider the costs of an added employee.
Not only for salary and benefits but also training. The person you hire may or may not have experience with the software package you are using.
Hiring a bookkeeper is not hiring an accountant.
You will need to find an outside firm to prepare your taxes and to answer questions if needed. The cost for an outside firm depends on your location and your accounting needs.
Efficient
Virtualizing your bookkeeping and accounting services can create business efficiencies.
Obviously, you no longer need to spend time on entering data and reconciling accounts, if you were doing your accounting.
That change means you can work more efficiently on the areas that require your immediate attention.
It also means your accounting documentation is digitized and stored off-site.
You no longer have to find storage for seven years of accounting data. And you don’t have to do filing!
Eliminating the paper creates more time and space to get other tasks done.
Best of all, you can efficiently find financial information from your laptop or phone.
You don’t have to wait for someone to generate a report or look up a customer’s invoice.
You have access to the information at the point you need it. Not hours later.
Convenience
Not only do virtual services save you money and time, but they also provide much-needed convenience.
With financial information stored on the cloud, you can access it when you need it – even at three in the morning.
You don’t have to wait until you get to the office the next day.
If you need copies of tax returns or other documents, you don’t have to search through filing cabinets full of paperwork.
You can access the digitized versions at any time.
That means, you can complete a loan application and attach supporting documents when you have the time.
No waiting for someone to find a tax return and copy it before you can complete the form.
Finally, you have the convenience of not worrying where those critical financial documents are.
No more hunting through filing cabinets or storage boxes to find a needed piece of financial data. Everything should be accessible on the cloud.
Security
Have you thought about how secure your financial data is?
If you are doing your bookkeeping in-house, you have two possible security concerns: physical and digital.
You may not think about a physical breach, but it is possible that an employee, cleaning crew or vendor could find financial information such as account numbers or customer data.
They might not do anything with the data, but with access to customer data they could.
If your business had a break-in, they might steal your computer with your financial information. Even if the criminals were not interested in your financial information, it is lost unless you backed up your files off-site.
But, there are other threats to your financial data.
How secure is your network? Do you have a properly configured firewall? Is your anti-virus software up to date? How about your operating systems?
If you aren’t keeping your network secure, you are opting yourself up to hackers or scammers. You may not think that is much of a concern.
Your business is too small or too obscure for hackers. Think again.
- 43% of cyberattacks are aimed at small businesses
- The average cost for a security breach is $200,000
- Over 50% of small business suffered a breach within the last 12 months
- 60% of business go out of business within six months of a breach
If you do not have the resources to maintain the security of your network, consider virtualizing your accounting.
Virtualized firms maintain secure connections for accessing your financial data.
They make sure that their software is up-to-date, and their network devices are properly configured. They have resources to monitor and maintain their network.
You don’t have to worry about keeping your data secure. Even if your network is compromised, your financial data is safe because it does not reside on your network.
Securing your financial data is crucial to business continuity.
If you are thinking about making a change to your accounting methods, consider virtualization. Instead of spending time and money on a task that takes you away from your business, why not contact us to schedule a consultation so you can get back to growing your business?