Are You Getting The Most Out Of Your Bookkeeper?
ByThis week I got another bill in the mail from my bookkeeper – 3 bills actually.
- One for bookkeeping for one entity: $25.
- Another for bookkeeping for my second entity: $50.
- Then -BOOM!- a third bill for personal bookkeeping for $512.50. Where did that come from??
I decided to investigate.
First, a little background. I have been working with my CPA for over a year and have been pleased with her tax advice and tax preparation services. She’s saved me thousands in taxes. About a year ago, I started working with a bookkeeping service through her firm (I think they bill $50/hour which is pretty high, but I originally thought would be "worth it" to have all the books in the same office and have access to supervision from my correct accountant.)
Now, I am starting to feel like I am going to be paying MORE in bookkeeping THAN I’M SAVING ON MY TAXES. Last month I paid them another $1,200 in fees. What’s going on?
I called their office to get clarification because their invoices are very "sparse" when it comes to documenting what they’re billing me for.
The explanation I got at that time was they were catching up all my books for the year 2007 and had wanted to bill me all at once when they were done and caught up. Whoa… personally, I would much rather see a smaller bill every month and keep track of what they are doing then let them run the clock on my dime and have them "surprise" me with it at the end.
I think this latest $512.50 bill is just the remnants of their major clean-up project, but I’m not sure. They suggested last time, my ongoing costs would be closer to $125/month, which is reasonable.
I’m squawking now to see if we can get this sorted out or whether I will have to take my business elsewhere.
Very Expensive, But Very Slow!
I don’t mind paying for good service, but in addition to getting these large bills, I feel like the service has been very SLOW. I’d asked for monthly cash flow statements so I could track my income/outgo for budgeting purposes. I think I’ve gotten one year-end statement for 2007 in March of 2008. Other than that, no such statements have been generated thus far.
Presumably part of this is due to some re-organization at the office, hiring and training new bookkeepers, etc. but it’s frustrating to pay a high price for something that’s not even coming in to me in a timely way.
I only started using a bookkeeper recently at the behest of my business partner and financial fluency guru, Steve Maxwell. I think he’s right that the information from the bookkeeper would be helpful in tracking my expenses. However, this bookkeeper is not delivering.
It’s time for them to make good, or I will have to make other arrangements. Anyone have a bookkeeper they love who is responsive and timely? 
I may be looking to change soon…
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2 Comments
April 15th, 2008 at 11:42 am
[...] recently wrote a rant about slow bookkeeping services from my CPA’s office. I am pleased to report that the [...]
April 17th, 2008 at 12:32 am
Hi Emily,
I don’t know if I told you this or not but I too hired a bookkeeper about a year ago. I fired her about 2 months ago. I think there is a hige opportunity in this if someone out there knows of good people.
I too was lookig to track expenses, (which we both know now were WAY out of whack) as well as monthly statement on cashflow percentage increase/decrease (don’t know what you call that) amongst other things.
I was hit with a $1,000.00 a month bill monthly. in the beginning, like you, it was cleaning up all of my old records (good for reference I suppose) however, many of my bills are on auto matic payment, so her assistant, who did most of the check writing, was writing maybe 10-12 checks a month. After months of going back and forth with what was missing and what was needed, I said -ENOUGH – unfortunately for me I had been too irresponsible for too long in not paying attention to what she was doing and what I wasn’t doing. Tough lesson and it will take me some time now to turn this puppy around, however, I’ve got my hands back on the wheel and looking ahead.
Let me know if and when you find someone good.