If you believe in them, what are your New Year’s resolutions for 2024?
To grow your business?
To make more money?
To be more present with friends and family?
To get a better handle on your finances?
What if I told you that there’s one thing you can do that can help you achieve ALL the above – and much, much more?
It may sound contrived, but hiring a bookkeeper can transform your business – and your life – in a variety of ways. (I’ve got plenty of clients who would agree.)
If growth is on your agenda, you’ll need to start prioritising your workload and delegating the tasks you don’t want (or need) to do to other people. One of the first things you can usually hand over is the management and monitoring of your company’s accounts.
While it’s a very important task, it’s not something you, as a business owner, should be focusing on every day; you should be putting your energy into the jobs that will get you more enquiries and enable you to deliver a better service to your clients.
And while it can seem counterintuitive, the old adage ‘you have to spend money to make money’ really does apply in this situation. Bring a bookkeeper on board, and you will be freeing up your time to focus on high-reward activities that will make you enough cash to cover their fees, and then some!
Looking after you
Aside from the financial and practical benefits of hiring a bookkeeper, one of the biggest reasons entrepreneurs need to invest in someone like me is this: doing their books themselves is simply too stressful. Most people are not ‘numbers’ people. And even if they have a good grasp of maths and a solid understanding of how tax regulations and company laws work in the UK, making sure everything is completed accurately and according to HMRC deadlines is a real burden when there are so many other plates to spin. Plus, the government is updating its legislation and thresholds all the time.
I’ve known of plenty of sole traders and company owners who have tied themselves in knots trying to get their tax return completed at the last minute, or missed out on months of sleep because their cash flow is out of control, or their bad debts are affecting their ability to pay their staff on time. I don’t want to feed you a cliché – but if you’re in this position, life really is too short to put yourself under this kind of pressure, especially when it makes so much logical and financial sense to hire an external bookkeeper. When you’re stressed and anxious, you make poor decisions. And, as we all know, one wrong move could spell disaster for your firm. You owe it to yourself and your team to make sure you are on top form as a leader and are doing everything you can to protect your own mental health – and this could very well include handing over your books to somebody else.
If you feel like you’ve spent far too many evenings and weekends staring blankly at your books in 2023, it’s time to change your approach. You won’t need to spend your free time sifting through receipts, chasing invoice payments, or putting together your employees’ wage slips – these are all things your bookkeeper can take care of on your behalf. Outsourcing things such as data entry, bank reconciliations, invoicing, credit control, payment runs, payroll and tax returns will give you back several hours of your working week… hours that could be put to much better use, either from a professional or a personal perspective.
With the New Year just around the corner, there’s never been a better time to contact me
If you truly want next year to be less stressful and more productive, you can’t carry on the way you are, expecting a different result.
I’ve helped dozens of business owners like you get a better grip on their income and expenditure and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with having an experienced professional on hand to manage their finances.
If you’re an existing client and would like to explore ways I can take even more off your plate, let’s have a chat – there’s always more I can do to help!
