If you’ve been searching for bookkeeping services in California, you may be wondering exactly what a professional bookkeeper does – and whether your business actually needs one.
Professional bookkeeping involves much more than simply categorizing transactions.
A bookkeeper helps maintain organized financial records so you can better understand what’s happening inside your business.
Transaction Categorization
Every business has money coming in and going out.
A bookkeeper helps ensure transactions are recorded in appropriate accounts so your financial reports provide meaningful information about your business.
Instead of hundreds of transactions sitting in Uncategorized Income or Uncategorized Expense, your records should clearly show how your business earns and spends money.
Bank and Credit Card Reconciliation
Reconciliation is a fundamental part of accurate bookkeeping.
Your bookkeeping records are compared with your actual bank and credit card statements to make sure transactions and balances agree.
Regular reconciliation can help identify duplicate transactions, missing activity, and other bookkeeping discrepancies.
Chart of Accounts Organization
The Chart of Accounts provides the structure for your bookkeeping.
Over time, businesses can accumulate duplicate, unnecessary, or incorrectly configured accounts.
A professional bookkeeper can help organize your Chart of Accounts so your financial reports are easier to understand.
Financial Reporting
Accurate bookkeeping allows business owners to review financial reports such as the Profit & Loss Statement and Balance Sheet.
A Profit & Loss Statement summarizes revenue and expenses over a particular period, while a Balance Sheet provides information about assets, liabilities, and equity at a specific point in time.
Keeping your bookkeeping current makes these reports much more useful for understanding your business.
QuickBooks Cleanup and Catch-Up Bookkeeping
Many California small-business owners don’t need to start from scratch. They need someone to fix the bookkeeping they already have.
QuickBooks cleanup and catch-up bookkeeping can involve reviewing historical transactions, correcting classifications, reconciling accounts, organizing the Chart of Accounts, and bringing past-due bookkeeping current.
Once your books have been cleaned up, ongoing monthly bookkeeping can help keep them organized.
Better Preparation for Tax Time
A bookkeeper and a tax professional perform different roles, but good bookkeeping can make tax preparation much easier.
Organized books allow you to provide your CPA or tax preparer with cleaner financial information instead of trying to reconstruct an entire year of business activity at the last minute.
Professional Bookkeeping Services Throughout California
Summers Bookkeeping & Advisory provides remote bookkeeping services for small businesses throughout California.
Services include QuickBooks Online bookkeeping, QuickBooks cleanup, catch-up bookkeeping, monthly reconciliations, Chart of Accounts organization, and financial reporting.
As a QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisor, I help California small-business owners spend less time worrying about their bookkeeping and more time running their businesses.
Need help cleaning up or managing your books? Contact Summers Bookkeeping & Advisory today to schedule a consultation.