You already know how important it is to get the financial side of your childcare business in order. Maybe you have considered adding a full-time accountant or bookkeeper to your childcare business staff. You have another option: outsourcing your accounting services. In this article, we review the role of an accountant in operating your childcare business and explore the benefits of outsourcing your accounting needs. Read on to find out more.

The Role of an Accountant or Bookkeeper  

The financial well-being of your childcare business is a critical component to the success of your company. A professional accountant or bookkeeper can perform a variety of important finance-related functions for your business:

• Payroll processing – An accountant will manage your payroll processing, which involves all duties needed to compensate your employees, including calculating total employee earnings, withholding deductions, filing payroll taxes, and ensuring payment. Accountants apply their expertise to streamline your payroll processes and help your business stay compliant with changing requirements.
• Tax preparation and compliance – Today’s tax laws can be extremely confusing. A professional accountant can step in to help you file your business taxes, making sure you maximize your deductions and credits and helping you file correctly to avoid risks and penalties. Relying on an accountant can lift a huge burden off your shoulders as a business owner, during tax season and all year long.
• Monthly reporting – Accurate reports are crucial to the success of your childcare company. You need access to monthly reports that are clean, optimized, and accurate to ensure you can check up on the financial well-being of your business and make wise financial decisions. A professional accountant will help clean up your books and create reports that are easy to access and refer to.
• Invoicing and receivables – You need to establish a healthy cash flow for your business and get cash in the door as efficiently as possible. Your accountant will help you take advantage of the latest technology to streamline your invoicing and receivables, saving you time, decreasing errors, and maximizing your childcare business’s profitability.
• Quarterly and annual forecasting – Wouldn’t it be great to be able to look ahead to next quarter, or next year and anticipate where your business will be at that point? An accountant will help you forecast and plan ahead for what’s next for your childcare business so you can feel in control of the future of your business finances.
• Profitability coaching – How can you maximize the profitability of your childcare business, now and in the future? An accounting professional can help you strategize your company finances, making the most of your budget, boosting your cash flow, and advising you how to invest money wisely so you can grow your business.

You may be wondering whether you really need to enlist the help of an accountant or bookkeeper for your childcare business. Here are several questions you can ask yourself to assess whether it’s time to involve an accounting professional:

• Is the financial side of your business taking you away from what you love most about it? In other words, are you spending your limited time, energy, and resources trying to make sense of your payroll processes, business budget, taxes, and more, when you know you need to be focusing on running your childcare company, cultivating relationships with the families you serve, leading your team, and growing your business?
• Can you afford to make the mistakes that a professional accountant can avoid? Financial errors can be costly, and if you aren’t completely confident in your financial know-how you could be holding your company back from reaching its full potential, or even causing harm to your business finances with high-risk mistakes.
• Are you able to optimize your childcare company’s growth singlehandedly? Managing your childcare business’s day-to-day operations and growing your company in order to boost profitability are monumental tasks. Ask yourself whether it’s time to work with professionals who can take some of that all-important responsibility off your back, freeing you up to grow even more.

No matter if you’re just starting your childcare business journey, or you’ve already been in it for the long haul, now may be the perfect time to consider working with a professional accountant.

What if you don’t have the capacity to hire a full-time, traditional accountant or bookkeeper for your childcare business, though? That’s where outsourcing your accounting services comes in.

Why Outsource Your Childcare Business Accounting Services?

Outsourcing your accounting services can give your childcare business a huge leg up. If you’re curious about why you should consider outsourcing your childcare business accounting, let’s take a look at several benefits of doing so:

• Outsourcing your accounting services saves you time and money. Hiring a full-time accountant or bookkeeper to oversee the financial side of your business may range from impractical to impossible. Considering the time and effort involved in recruiting, hiring, and training the right employee, as well as the cost of employee benefits, it may simply not make sense to bring a traditional, full-time accountant or bookkeeper onboard. Instead, when you outsource your accounting needs to professional accounting experts, you save valuable time by forgoing the employee hiring process and money by only paying for the accounting services you need.
• Outsourcing your accounting offers options that work for your business. A professional accounting service offers a wide array of functions that you can prioritize according to the needs of your childcare business. For example, do you already have a bookkeeper who handles your payroll processes and monthly budget? An outsourced accounting professional can step in to oversee your company finances, streamlining existing processes and offering insight and guidance to help you improve and strategize your business finances. Whether you need to outsource all of your business accounting needs, or enlist professional expertise in a few specific roles, you have that flexibility with a professional accounting service.
• Outsourcing your accounting reduces risk and ensures accuracy. There is no doubt about it; companies who have internal employees handling all of their business finances are at greater risk for fraud and simple human errors than those who work with professionals outside the company. Outsourcing your accounting can give you access to unbiased, objective accounting services from professionals who aren’t personally influenced by the financial state of your business. This means your outsourced accountant can get right into the nitty-gritty of your company financial situation, providing you with a clear picture of how things truly are and a plan for moving forward.
• Outsourcing your accounting gives you access to financial expertise you might otherwise forgo. When you outsource your accounting services, you are choosing to work with experts who live and breathe the full scope of professional accounting in its many roles: payroll processing, tax compliance, risk management, forecasting, etc. Instead of relying on limited personal knowledge of these crucial elements of your business finances, you can instead partner with the professionals whose wealth of knowledge will greatly benefit your childcare business.
• Outsourcing your accounting increases efficiency and maximizes growth. Professional accountants can offer a deep-dive assessment of your financial processes and help you streamline those processes with the latest technology to simplify and optimize your business accounting. When you have on-demand access to your financial reports, understand your current financial situation, and determine where you want to be, you can make financial decisions for your business that help you reach your goals. Outsourcing your accounting is one of the most efficient ways to maximize your company’s profitability so you can grow.

Now that you know the benefits of outsourcing your accounting services for your childcare business, the next step is easy! Schedule a discovery call with us and find out how the experts at Honest Buck Accounting can optimize your business finances and free you up to get back to what you love most about your childcare business.