The tasks that most small business owners complete with ease in Xero are what we would call regular tasks.
Creating invoices – Xero makes it really easy to manage your invoicing and connects to various CRM systems and on-line sales platforms like PayPal to ensure your client details and transactions are up to date. It has certainly taken a lot of the manual work out of invoicing and reconciling payments and most small businesses can manage this task perfectly adequately in Xero. Of course, if you find invoicing a chore or something you don’t do regularly enough a bookkeeper can help with those tasks.
Spending money and expenses – A lot of small business owners would say they have no trouble doing that anyway, but Xero certainly helps small business owners stay on top of paying invoices and bills. Paying bills is a chore and deadtime, are you doing this efficiently?
Bank reconciliation – As mentioned bank reconciliation is something Xero excels at making easy but ensuring that transactions are reconciled to the right account category and tax rate is important here. This is something that small business owners can struggle with if their xero account hasn’t been set up properly.
Set-up
We can see that Xero makes it easy for small business owners to keep on top of their day-to-day finances and therefore it’s a valid question to ask do I really need a bookkeeper? Where we find many business owners come unstuck is in the set up. We often find that the appropriate account and tax categories haven’t been set up, meaning that even though transactions have been reconciled they haven’t been reconciled correctly. This can cause a lot of issues further down the line and time will be needed to sort out incorrectly filed or incomplete transactions. This can be stressful and disheartening when you think you’ve done the job already.
These errors may only be noticed when you submit your accounts to your accountant and that can be costly for them to put right. Working with a bookkeeper from the outset ensures that your Xero account is set up properly for your needs, saving you time, money, and stress further down the line.
If you’re reading this and your account has been set up for ages then a bookkeeper can still help, by reviewing the set-up and making sure you have a good system in place that meets your needs.
Training
Once your Xero is set up correctly you want to make sure you are using it properly and that you know all the tricks and tips you can use to save you time. Here at MS Books we provide training to all our clients to ensure they get the most out of Xero, both day-to-day and for their long term planning.
Peace of mind
By having a bookkeeper regularly involved in the everyday maintenance of your accounts you can rest easy knowing that the job is being done properly and you have accurate and up-to-date records. We can also remind you when bills need paying or returns need submitting and do that for you and help with any of the day-to-day transactions that you may not want or have the time to keep on top of. Finally, we can give you a greater understanding of how you are trading, ensuring that using Xero is not just keeping you compliant but that it is making a difference to your business future too.
If you’d like some help with your Xero set-up or ongoing maintenance please get in touch for a chat.