12 Questions to Ask Your Current or Future Bookkeeper to Make Sure You're a Good Fit
Episode 714: Show Notes
We talk so often about financial literacy and creating sustainable businesses online that we’ve had a handful of clients ask us questions about bookkeeping. Based on all of the questions that come in, there are some things we want to share with our listeners about how to make sure that you have a bookkeeper that’s really well suited to you. Whether you’re interviewing someone for the first time or looking to get the most out of your existing relationship, this episode is for you.
So many of us really lean into trusting the experts in this industry, which is great! But over the last few years, there has been a new level of service that’s been expected and desired from clients. Now we want our financial professionals to go a little bit above and beyond just reconciling the books, to really help us understand and learn from our numbers. That is the biggest gap that we see happening for most business owners. That’s why we want to equip you with the best questions to ask to make sure that you find the right person to work alongside you; not just someone to “do it for you.”
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The First Set of Questions We Developed For Someone Who Had Never Hired a Bookkeeper Before
Whether this is your first bookkeeper, or your second or third, we’ve outlined a list of questions to include in the interview process. Instead of just finding someone online and enlisting them to do the job, we want you to be taking this a lot more seriously. You should be interviewing someone to fully understand their capabilities to make sure that they are a good fit for your team.
Ask them to explain more about the scope of their services. This is your opportunity to get them talking about how they look at deliverables, and how they approach their services. Ask about their tax strategies. Not all bookkeepers are tax strategists, and that is okay. That’s not to say that they’re not a fit. But we often see that they’re not fully thinking through the opportunities available to them.
For those of us doing business online, it’s important to ask if your bookkeeper has worked with a digital business before. The mechanisms, tactics and software that we use are different, and so we would love to have you work with someone who has experience in this arena. Is your practitioner a generalist or a specialist? How does that fit in with your needs? Another game changing question to ask is whether the person you’re talking to will be the one handling the account. It doesn’t necessarily need to be the founder, but you do need to meet and feel comfortable with your point of contact.
Why You Don’t Have to Settle for Anything Less than Being Overjoyed with your Bookkeeper’s Service
Anytime someone looks after your books, they’re going to be touching on all your bank accounts, all your processes, and any CRM or other service you have in place to handle the initial client communication. We firmly believe that you don’t have to compromise on the level of service you are receiving from your bookkeeping contractor. You don’t have to just go with the first bookkeeper you find! This is an interviewing process.
One way to find your perfect fit is to copy this sentence word-for-word: ‘we’ve set expectations internally that we find a bookkeeper who’s willing to not just balance our books with cash in the bank, but spend the time to properly allocate sales and expenses to individualized categories. Can you describe the level of detail you typically dive into on individual accounts? Are you familiar with using the systems I listed earlier to itemize items more automatically?
It’s so huge to have specificity! People end up lumping a lot of their income or expenses that they have no idea how much they sold previously, they just know how much income came in. You need to know what you’ve sold. It’s okay if your bookkeeper uses tools to automatically categorize things. In fact, sometimes that shows you that they understand these systems in depth.
How to Get the Most Out of Your Existing Financial Relationships
If you already have a bookkeeper you like, but you’re looking to get more out of the experience to get specific on your needs, there are plenty of ways to start the conversation. Set up a meeting to let them know that you appreciate your time together, and that you want to better utilize your profit and loss statement as a tool moving forward, so you have a few questions.
Don’t be offended if they let you know that you’ll need to do a clean up project in order to make that happen! It’s important to gauge if they're being cooperative with you, or if they are being resistant to you and reluctant to implement the changes. It’s okay if you’ve worked with a bookkeeper for a while and know that you need to make a change. That’s a valid result of this conversation! But sometimes you can make adjustments with someone you already know and have an existing service with.
One of the best things that you can do within your business is to separate your income into an itemized list instead of one lump sum. Another question to ask is, based on your history, do they have suggestions on how to budget for a big purchase you have in mind. If they can talk to you about what would need to happen to achieve your goal, that’s a really positive experience.
One Last Question to Ask (You Don’t Have to Run with the Answer)
Everyone’s financial needs are different. You never really know how other people are operating without a deeper look. However, if anyone is going to give you a better gauge, its bookkeepers. They look at trends in other businesses and only talk about the ones that are successful. You don’t often hear from them about what’s not working. This is a question to ask once you’ve already vetted that they have knowledge in your industry. You can ask about all sorts of industry trends, but one great question is if your prices are on par with others your bookkeeper has seen in the industry.
This is all just to enhance the relationship you have with your bookkeeper. Both of you need all the information you can get. Having this information can be vital in helping you make decisions going forward. Whether you have a bookkeeper or not, this is a lot of information to take in and implement going forwards. Leveraging your relationship with your bookkeeper is an opportunity to keep growing.
If any of this was overwhelming, or you want some resources on who you might reach out to get these services set up, send us a DM over at Boss Project on Instagram. We would love to talk to you about what your opportunities are, and how we might be able to help!
Summary of the Key Questions:
When interviewing a bookkeeper:
Can you tell me more about the scope of your services?
Are you employing any tax strategies with your business clients?
What's your experience with online/virtual service based businesses?
Would you describe yourself more as a generalist or a specialist? How so?
Would you be the one handling my books on a monthly basis or would there be someone else managing my account? Who would be our point of contact?
Describe your experience and comfort level with Dubsado, Stripe, Paypal, INSERT ANY PAY SYSTEM YOU ARE UTILIZING?
We've set expectations internally that we find a bookkeeper who is willing to not just balance our books with cash in the bank, but spend the time to properly allocate sales and expenses to individualized categories. Can you describe the level of detail you typically dive into on individual accounts? Are you familiar with using the systems I mentioned earlier to itemize items more automatically?
Ask an existing bookkeeper:
Can you more specifically categorize my income by service/offer rather than have it as one lump sum?
Based on my history, do you have suggestions for how to budget for (insert goal - new hire, large purchase)?
What are my most obvious opportunities to save on taxes?
If my income goal is $$$, how many clients do I need to work with in the next 12-months?
Are my prices on par with others you are seeing in the industry?
Quote This
You can definitely get a very basic service level bookkeeping option that will suffice for filing taxes, but it’s not going to aid in you having the answers or information that would help you grow your business.
Highlights
The First Set of Questions We Developed For Someone Who Had Never Hired a Bookkeeper Before [0:07:58]
Why You Don’t Have to Settle for Anything Less than Being Overjoyed with your Bookkeeper’s Service [0:17:26]
How to Get the Most Out of Your Existing Financial Relationships [0:21:08]
One Last Question to Ask (You Don’t Have to Run with the Answer) [0:25:59]
Today’s Guest:
Abagail & Emylee
The Strategy Hour Podcast
The Strategy Hour Podcast is a twice weekly show hosted by Abagail Pumphrey and Emylee Williams, the founders of Boss Project. Join us for semi-ranty biz conversations for service providers looking to ethically grow their agency businesses. Episodes cover everything from lead generation to leadership mindset to team culture and beyond.
Key Topics:
Bookkeeping, Financial literacy, Business planning, Accounting, Taxes, Leveraging relationships
