Every business needs to maintain books of all their records of financial transactions. These financial books will also show you your income and expenses. In turn, all these records will help you evaluate your business better and pay appropriate taxes. Right now, you can already have your accounting on the cloud or done by a bookkeeping firm. Here are some tips on how to find the best cloud accounting and bookkeeping firm in Boston.
1. Costing plan
The first thing to do is to ask about their pricing plan. This will serve as the limits of which bookkeeping firm you can afford. Budget will put the restraints on which services you can use. If they’re pricing by the hour, then this may not be very good for your company. This is a bad idea because virtual bookkeeping services consists of the cloud, which should not be priced per hour.
Cloud accounting and bookkeeping firms must offer a flat rate pricing. This can be a monthly fee for a set of services rendered. This is a good sign. Boston CPA Services Company, for example, is a firm that offers a fixed flat rate pricing for services rendered.
2. Ask about their deliverables
It’s important that you know all the services the bookkeeping firm will be rendering. The cloud accounting and bookkeeping firm should be able to send reports out to you on a regular basis. You may also check with them how frequent this will be and if they’ll be reviewing reports with you. Each and every virtual bookkeeping service should have this provision for you. It might cost more than the cheapest package, but the option to choose this service should be made available to you as well.
3. Check for the experience of the firm
It’s best if you get a firm with great experience in the industry. When you’re inquiring about their services, be sure to ask in-depth about their experiences to avoid wrong assumptions. After asking questions, you can do some background check on the firm.
Dig deeper by asking others who have been their previous clients. Ask about their experience with the firm and check how much they were charging. Do some research as well on the technology on cloud and virtual accounting. Make sure that the accounting firm that you’ll be hiring has the best kind and updated technology available.
4. Make a comparison
After getting information from your prospective firms, you can now make a comparison among the firms. Put the firms side by side and make a comparison. Check out their price points and the services they each offer. Compare each of their experiences as well and years of service. See if their technology keeps up with the times. As check and balance, ask for each of their reference clients and call them about the services of the firm.
5. Consider your needs for your business
The best cloud accounting and bookkeeping firm will be based on your business’ needs and business model. Be careful to tailor fit it to your needs and how your business operates. Depending on which industry you’re in, you might need to consider a specialized accounting software that can be designed for the kind of business you have.
For example, there are customized accounting software for manufacturing companies. There’s also types of accounting software for restaurants and retailers. In this part, doing your research will play an important part. So, make sure you do in-depth research.
6. Choose your firm with the help of your accountant
It’d be better if you have your accountant by your side when you choose your bookkeeping firm as they’ll be the ones who understand and do the work. Every business will be different, and your accountant will have the most educated opinion about which software and programs your business will need.
In customizing your software, the accountant may be able to give some valuable contributions as how to go about this. This is why it’s very important to get the opinion of your accountant on matters like these. Someone experienced by your side will be able to inform and advise you the right way.
Conclusion
Maintaining the proper financial statements may require some effort and a large amount of time. So, instead of putting in your own time and effort into this, it’s better to have these kinds of services outsourced instead of hiring and training your own team of accountants.