Bookkeeping services
What are the different types of bookkeeping? A list of bookkeeping services includes:
- Basic Bookkeeping services
- Payroll Services
- Tax preparation Services
- Other Services
bookkeeping services
Write Up Services
Write up services are the pretty minimal bookkeeping services. They include monthly, quarterly or annual services that are typically provided to smaller businesses. This typically involves making manual entries into ledgers for your clients. Most business write checks and get invoices, but they won’t enter that into the ledger. That’s where write up services come in.
Whether or not you will be working monthly, quarterly or annually depends on the number of transactions of the client and their budget. You will normally have to enter this data into your own bookkeeping software because the client might not have the software.
You should provide your client with the following financial statements.
Balance sheet
Monthly profit and loss/income statement
Quarterly profit and loss
YTD profit and loss
Work in Progress or job profitability report (construction clients)
Cash flow forecast or budget report
Working trial balance
Accounts payable aging
Accounts receivable aging
Payroll reports
General ledger reports
Full charge bookkeeping services
This is what it sounds like. You provide all the bookkeeping services possible to a business. It can be confusing sometimes what the difference between a full charge bookkeeper and an accountant is. A full charge bookkeeper wouldn’t be an employee and wouldn’t necessarilly have to work everyday for the business.
A full charge bookkeeper would also not be responsible for the payroll taxes of their clients. An independent bookkeeper is also good because they provide an outsider’s view. They are more interested in the health of a business than an employee since their income is based on the company’s ability to stay in business and making consistent revenue.
Some services you would be expected to provide as a full charge bookkeeper
Accounts payable
This includes working on 1099s, vendor payables, purchasing and inventory.
Accounts receivable
Working on things like invoicing, collections, and deposits/cash receipts
Payroll
Bank reconciliations
Loan and credit reconciliations
Year end accounting processes
Sales tax returns
Premium tax returns
Budgeting
Cash flow projections
Other financial projections
Onsite vs offsite bookkeeping
Some clients might want you to work onsite while others would want you to work offsite. Maybe it’s more convenient for you to work offsite. If you work offsite, you would need to consider how you are going to receive the clients documents. Will they mail you the documents or will you receive them electronically. If you receive them physically, you would most likely need to manually enter the data into software.
Basic bookkeeping services
Basic bookkeeping services would be limited to data entry, recording cash receipts, accounts payable and accounts receivable work. This would not include things like account reconciliations and financial statement preparation.
Payroll Services
Payroll services is probably one of the most spoken about bookkeeping services because everyone loves payroll right? Just kidding.
Payroll services would include
Payroll tax deposits
Preparing quarterly and annual payroll tax returns
The forms for payroll returns are – 940, 941, W-2s and W-3s, other state payroll tax returns
Workers comp reports and filings
Helping to process payroll checks each pay period
Time tracking for construction jobs
Tax prep services
Another service that bookkeepers can provide is tax return preparation services. Some of this was included in payroll as you saw that there are various tax returns that need to be filed for payroll purposes. There are also other services that needed to be completed for tax purposes though.
You can prepare personal tax returns, business returns, estimated tax returns, partnership tax returns and corporate tax returns
Personal form – 1040
Partnership forms – 1065 and k-1s
Corporate tax returns 1120
Other Bookkeeping services
Consulting
You can provide various consulting work to your clients like document storage. You can advise them on moving to the cloud for their document storage and financial information management. You can also recommend bookkeeping software for them so that it can make your life easier.
Budgeting services
Clients need to understand if they are spending too much money. Your budgeting services can help them understand this. You can also help them see if their sales projections are in line with expectations. They also need to be able to budget for their tax liabilities.
Cash Flow services
Cash rules everything. You can help your clients understand how much cash flow they will have on hand. Additionally, investors are often interested in cash flow projections.
Tax planning
You can also help your clients with tax planning. This means that they can minimize taxable income my executing on your recommendations.
Personal services
You can also help your client with their own personal financial situations.
Best online bookkeeping services
best online bookkeeping services
The best online bookkeeping services include
Quickbooks – quickbooks have various applications that can help you with your bookkeeping services
Xero – Xero is also a popular bookkeeping service. They have various software offerings that include:
Xero online
Xero Established
Xero growing
Xero early
Sage – Sage used to be Peachtree which was another popular bookkeeping software. There is Sagepro, sage50 premium, sage50 quantum, sage50 business
Sage50cloud pro – this is currently being offered for $51 per month. This is for one user only that also allows remote access. You can reconcile financial statements to your bank accounts automatically.
Sage50cloud premium – this costs 78 a month. This offers a few more features than pro. It has more job costing features and advanced budgeting features. This also has remote access.
Sage50 Quantum – This is an enterprise level solution for people with up to 40 users which is a lot. This costs 197.55 a month.
Sage50 business cloud – This is an online bookkeeping service that goes from $10 to $25 a month. With the 10 service yo can create sales invoices, track what you are owed
Waveapps
MYOB
Reckon
Freshbooks – Freshbooks does not offer free online bookkeeping services, but they do offer various packages from $6 to $20 per month. The premium service allows you to have up to 200 clients.
Zipbooks – Zipbooks offers a free package with basic services. There is a smarter package for $15 and $35 for sophisticated. They also offer a $125 monthly package for professional bookkeepers.
Free online bookkeeping services
Of the apps mentioned above, the following have free bookkeeping services of some sort
Zipbooks