Your years of training and apprenticeship have made you an expert in plumbing systems and pipe fixtures. You have worked hard to build your business, grow your clientele base, and spend considerable time travelling to different job sites to provide a service that only a select few can.
It makes sense that you may be looking to hire a bookkeeper to assist you with your day-to-day finances. Managing your business and books can be time-consuming and take your focus away from core important aspects of your business. Growing your business or furthering your skill set should never be crowded out by administrative tasks.
When looking to hire a bookkeeper, there are a few key points that you should keep in mind.
1. Industry experience and knowledge
As a professional in the plumbing industry, your business has unique accounting needs. A bookkeeper will ensure your books are balanced and updated each month. They will know how to perform bank and credit card reconciliations, sales tax filings, transaction coding, and financial reports.
Even so, you want to be sure that the bookkeeper you choose has experience working with other plumbing or construction-based companies and has knowledge of your industry's specific accounting needs.
Your chosen bookkeeper should help you set up your chart of accounts so that you can organize your finances in a meaningful manner. They should know how to create additional accounts for job materials purchased and equipment rental.
For example, the payroll for your plumbing technicians should be a direct cost of goods sold, whereas your admin staff's payroll should be listed under your overhead costs. Your bookkeeper needs to allocate your costs appropriately to give you good visibility on your gross margin.
Plumbing businesses rely on job costing to understand their profitability on each job clearly. Therefore, you need to have a bookkeeper to track the revenue and expenses assigned to each project.
2. Payroll expertise
Payroll legislation is constantly changing, and you need to hire a reliable bookkeeper who is knowledgeable and current on all legislation. It is essential to track WSIB, CPP, EI deductions, Employer Health Tax, vacation pay, and Worker's Compensation to comply with payroll legislation. Your bookkeeper should be fully certified in payroll compliance.
It is essential to have a payroll process in your business where vacation is tracked, benefits are appropriately reflected on employee pay stubs, and remittances are calculated and remitted accurately and on time.
3. Familiarity with accounting technology
Your bookkeeping processes need to be reliable and allow you to be as efficient as possible. Fortunately, many accounting technologies on the market can help streamline your accounting workflow.
Your bookkeeper needs to understand how to use these tools to create an efficient bookkeeping process for your business. Doing so will allow you to save a significant amount of time on manual data entry and will also reduce your bookkeeping costs. Plus, you eliminate the need for physical document storage when you use cloud-based technology.
Your bookkeeper should know how to use different accounting tools to make your receivables and payables processes more efficient, ultimately improving your cash flow. Software like QuickBooks Online and Dext Prepare can help you manage your expenses, while platforms like Plooto can assist with vendor payments.
Your bookkeeper should be able to provide you and your entire team with proper training on how to use all of this technology efficiently as well.
4. Ability to grow with your business
When hiring a bookkeeper, you must find someone who can scale alongside your business. If you hire an in-house bookkeeper or a part-time bookkeeping contractor, their capacity might be limited. As your business grows, they may not be capable of growing alongside you.
Outsourcing your bookkeeping to a specialized bookkeeping firm means you have access to a team of bookkeepers who can take on the extra work required as your business expands. They can also provide you with other accounting services such as payroll, accounts payable management, accounts receivable management, and controllership services, all of which will come in handy as your business grows.
Hiring a bookkeeper to take over the tedious task of managing your books is an excellent idea. It will free up time and allow you to commit more resources to expand your business and make critical financial decisions. Enkel can help with all of your bookkeeping and back-office solutions.
Our team of trained professionals can provide your plumbing business with the bookkeeping and payroll expertise that you require to run a successful plumbing business. We know your industry and the accounting technology that will best assist you. Contact us today to find out how we can help you.
How We Select and Evaluate Our Recommended Software
We thoroughly research and test the apps we include in our regular workflow for Client bookkeeping services. After deciding on criteria for evaluating the software and then researching the app itself, we tested the app, noting its strengths and weaknesses. We then work with the app for at least a few weeks before deciding whether to recommend it to our readers. We use the software as it was designed for its intended tasks. For a detailed walk-through of how we select and evaluate software, please see the details of our process.
