WHY HIRE A PROFESSIONAL BOOKKEEPER, when the Do-It-Yourself software is so cheap? There’s such a long list of potential candidates: Sage 50, QuickBooks, Xero, Sage One, QuickBooks Online, Wave, Freshbooks, Kashoo, SlickPie and more. How accurate is it? Which one is best for YOUR business, when they all say they do all things for all industries?
Out of the box, DIY software is not personalized to work the way you do. It’s setup to work the way a computer programmer thinks it should, more so than a competent bookkeeper would. Expenses are typically listed in alphabetical order. If you want to know how much it costs to run your building, you need to search through a myriad of accounts to find your rent, heat, hydro, security system, property tax etc. and then you have to add it all up outside of the software, and then hope you didn’t miss something. A professional should never setup your accounts this way.
There may be items you want to track at a closer level than out-of the-box software suggests. For example we have a client who has ten different advertising accounts. He uses the detailed information to track how sales are affected by different advertising mediums. This higher level detail helps him make decisions to run his business much more profitably.
Then there’s the concern of “is it done properly”. How do you know with DIY software? It will only be after the CRA auditor has finished an examination and by then it’s too late. CRA auditors no longer tell you if they see an error made that decreases your tax burden (ie a missed deduction). They only report if the omission means you pay more.
