11 Top Benefits of Online Bookkeeping

Keeping your books in order does more than offer peace of mind. An accurate accounting of your financial status also allows you to attract more investors, avoid tax penalties, and help ensure that your staff are always paid on time. 

If you’re a small business rapidly growing into a large organisation, you will eventually outgrow at-home accounting software. Professional online bookkeeping services might be the answer. Once you learn about online bookkeeping benefits, we think you’ll be persuaded to enlist a little (or a lot of) help with your general ledger. 

Do You Really Need to Outsource Bookkeeping?

You can certainly do your own bookkeeping in your back office. But as your business scales upward, it’s easy to fall behind on weekly reports and lose track of some expenses. The risk of forgetting to pay an invoice will be forever in the back of your mind when you lay down to sleep at night. 

Alternatively, you can switch to an online bookkeeping team. Handing over your books to a virtual team can help you save money and time, avoid mistakes, and gain access to experts. We can’t recommend entrusting a virtual team of bookkeeping professionals enough. You can even add new members to your online bookkeeping team whenever you have new accounting needs. 

Top Reasons to Hire Online Bookkeepers 

Online bookkeeping is a way to manage your accounts receivable, accounts payable, financial reports, tax reports, and more — without an in-house team. Your online bookkeeper can become a valued member of your staff, even at a distance. These are the top reasons to switch to online bookkeeping. 

Save money on payroll.

Hiring a full-time staff member requires you to pay more than an hourly rate or salary. You’re also responsible for mandatory benefits. These benefits include superannuation, sick leave, and long service leave. If you enlist a bookkeeper as a vendor, you can save money on payroll and use it for other essential expenses. 

Avoid catch-up bookkeeping.

Paying someone to go through your books and find mistakes you made months ago is time consuming and expensive. Stay up to date on your finances by turning to an online bookkeeper. By creating monthly reconciliation reports and maintaining your general ledger, you can avoid painful troubleshooting later. 

Get meaningful insights.

One of the most important online bookkeeping benefits is that you won’t just keep your money straight — it can help you see into the  future. No, really! A professional bookkeeper can help to detect where you’re losing money. They can also tell you where your business is thriving. Insights into which customers spend the most money and which products are failing allow you to be more strategic. 

More accurate bookkeeping.

A simple mistake can have a huge ripple effect. When you reconcile your books, you’ll be grateful for accurate records. Double-entry bookkeeping records each transaction twice. It’s more accurate, but takes more time and effort. Let a bookkeeper take over the task to reduce  common mistakes that often happen when you’re in a rush. 

Properly categorised expenses.

Making sure your expenses are categorised properly helps you make important decisions. Are you spending too much on shipping? Do you have spending redundancies in your marketing costs? You can make better decisions when you see precisely where your cash is going and why. Online bookkeeping makes it easy to code each transaction into categories. 

Prepare taxes painlessly. 

If you fail to pay taxes on time, fail to withhold taxes properly, or fail to meet your obligations — you could be looking at penalties. Lodging your taxes the right way means having organised books. Your online bookkeeper can handle all the hard work for you.  

Avoid onboarding and training. 

Hiring a new in-house accountant or bookkeeper could mean putting them through a training programme. Not only does this prolong the hiring process, but it costs money. And if your bookkeeper quits? You’re back at square one. With an online bookkeeping service, you often have access to a team. If one person leaves, another bookkeeper can jump in seamlessly. 

Leverage industry-specific expertise.

Many online bookkeeping services also offer experts in your field. Is your main business e-commerce sales? You need someone on hand who knows how to track high inventory turnover and shipping costs. If you sell food, you’ll want a bookkeeper who can track licensing fees and make recommendations. Going virtual for your bookkeeper means you can be matched to someone who knows your industry, regardless of where they are located. 

Use automated reporting.

Cloud-based accounting is a game changer. It’s one of the key online bookkeeping benefits. Since they’re not on location, a virtual bookkeeper will have to maintain your records in the cloud, which gives them access to some of the most up-to-date bookkeeping software. You can even ask your bookkeeper to generate automated reports. Schedule revenue, spending, and payroll reports each month to make sure you never fall behind. 

Be more efficient with your time.

Time you spend categorising invoices is time you’re not spending on research and development, marketing, and getting to know your customers. Simply put: online bookkeeping frees up tonnes of time. Your executives can concern themselves with growth instead of calculating reports. 

Accomplish money management faster.

Experienced online bookkeepers know what they’re doing, every step of the way. If you’re trying to do your own books, you are bound to miss a few deadlines. And affordable in-house bookkeepers may take a few weeks to get caught up. Online bookkeepers provide a seamless experience, generating your reports and tracking expenses in real-time. 

When you outsource bookkeeping, you free up time and resources for your back office. Imagine how much more time you’ll have for brainstorming marketing strategies and dealing with customer service if you’re not wringing your hands over an expense report. Visory makes the switch to online bookkeeping easy. Once you are quickly onboarded, you have access to a team of experts. You can grow or scale back your bookkeeping team as needed. And even better, you have around the clock access to your books!