?'s about the cost of having a bookeeper/accountant

[PLD 14]

This thread started in Resi-PW but I wanted to explore it further so I moved it here:

My sister (a pro acctountant) does my taxes each year but I've been doing a horrible job of bookeeping myself. She and I both dread tax time each year. I have three seperate businesses and need to get someone else to handle it. BUT, I'm so small that I cannot afford to hire an in house record manager/bookeeper. How much/month is typical if I want someone else to handle all the paperwork/ records management but writing checks/making deposits?

Perhaps an answer requires a little more explanation.

For my PW business

I want to give them hand written estimates, notices of completion, deposits and check registers. In return, I want a monthly financial reports, est'd taxes due, and a customer DB for mailing purposes. I 1099 my employee, so that's not a big issue.

For my online business

I get 10-15 transactions/day. They get posted to the processor who either funds them (visa/mc) or sends them to another processor (Disc and amex). For every batch submitted (~3x/week), three deposits (less xaction costs) are made to my account. Each batch needs to be audited to make sure that all funds are accounted for.

For my rental property

there are no more than a 1/2 dozen transactions per year. I just want financial reports and tax work.

It gets more fun: I have three seperate bank accounts, but none of the three businesses are substantial enough at this time to fully support me (PW and online are both seasonal). So, it is not uncommon to see irregular draws and/or xfers from the accounts to balance things out. For example, nov-feb the online biz pays for the truck, office, and cell phone. Mar-Oct, PW does. Salary to me varies by week and may come from any and/or all of the businesses.

Now that I have spilled my guts, if anyone can give me a decent idea of what to expect to pay I would appreciate it. I would say that it takes 4-6 hours per week, but that's what it takes me. I suspect that an organized person who does this alot may get it done in just an hour or two. I say that for two reasons. One, because I do it monthly and there are stacks and stacks to organize, file, then deal with. And two, I tend to save everything because I don't know what not to keep.

Why not hire my sister? She's already buried with job and kids. If I wasn't her brother, she'd probably tell me to find someone else to do the taxes.

[Celeste 341]

Phillip,

Have you tried using QuickBooks Pro for all of your businesses? It's really user friendly, all of your banking is interactive in the program and they have additional services. I noticed that you have handwritten estimates, but you could enter them very quickly, convert them to invoices upon completion, enter the payment and boom - this customer has their own register. It's really neat - not terribly expensive and it does 1099's too :)

Celeste

[PLD 14]

I have, and I still own a copy. However, I have found several significant drawbacks that I cannot work around. I've listed them below, if anyone has suggestions please speak up.

First, since each company is a seperate file, postings between one company and the other must be made manually. Because I share an AMEX and a credit line between the three companies, each company must maintain a seperate "amex" account, which will never reconcile with the actual statement. Same goes for the credit line.

Second, xfers between the personal account and the business accounts must be made manually. Since I live out of these three businesses there are quite a few of these. For example, I may xfer $500 for each account to personal to pay the house note. That's 6 manual entries...

Finally, Quicken and Quickbooks are not deisgned to co-habitate well. Neither offers a way to "import" a QFX file. You just "execute" the QFX file and windows associates it with a given program. That means that you can use QFX with QB or quicken, but not both. And QFX is critical to people who import frequently. With QIF files you'd have tons of duplicate entries.

So, presently I use Quicken for everything and lump it under one "household". Crude and no financial reports, but I have all the data there at tax time.

Anyway, all that said QB isn't going to solve the bigger problem that I have. That being only bookeeping once a month and filing even less often.

[Grant 500]

"I 1099 my employee"

Employee's get W-2's, subcontractors get 1099's. Do not use those terms interchangably or you will need an attorney more than you need an accountant.

It sound to me like you need a part time person (ie. student) with a math/accounting background that can just get and keep you organized and then have an accountant review your monthly reports and verify the figures. You should be able to find someone through a local college business department.