As you dive head first into a startup journey, make sure everything – including your bookkeeping – is ready for the road ahead.
Key Takeaways
- Startups face many risks, so don’t add poor bookkeeping to the things you need to overcome
- Tap into accounting experience that you couldn’t afford to hire otherwise
- Create a relationship that can grow as your new business starts to find traction in the market
- Have the flexibility to scale down when needed to save on costs
Getting a startup off the ground successfully is one of the biggest challenges in business. The rewards, of course, can be tremendous – but only if you get everything organized and manage to find an audience that is interested in your products or services. One area where a startup certainly can’t afford to make mistakes is in the accounting department, so using outsourced bookkeeping for startups will make sure things are on track and you can focus your attention elsewhere.
Building a history of accurate financial data is a requirement for any company that hopes to secure funding to help itself grow. Through the use of an outsourced accounting service such as Swiftbooks, a startup will both control costs and keep its books in good condition at the same time. If this is a challenge you need to tackle in your business, contact the friendly team at Swiftbooks today to learn more about what we can do to help you achieve the loftiest of goals.
The Challenges Facing Startups
Let’s not pretend like everything is rosy for a startup business – it’s a tough road to get a business off the ground, and plenty of startups fail. Against that backdrop, you can’t afford to make even minor mistakes in the early days, as those errors could put you well behind the competition. Using outsourced accounting firms is a nice way to avoid dealing with so many financial management troubles that you wind up struggling to continue in the market.
In the early days, you might just pick an accounting software and go with it at first. That’s probably okay, as you may not have any income to track, and hopefully, your expenses will be minimal. It’s mostly sweat equity at the start as you try to find some traction and locate your first customers. Don’t stick with that solution for very long, however, as upgrading from basic accounting software to the work of outsourced accounting firms as soon as possible is an important step to keep on growing.
Let’s get a little more specific below and look at some of the unique challenges that startup accounting often encounters.
A Lack of Experience
If this is the first time you have started a business, you might not know the first thing about producing financial statements or keeping accurate financial records. Maybe you are just out of college and you have a degree in something else. Or, maybe you have plenty of work experience to your credit, but it’s in sales, marketing, or product development. If you have never used a piece of accounting software and now you suddenly want to handle the books all on your own, you’ll be looking at a recipe for disaster.
How does outsourced bookkeeping work might be a question you’re considering at this point. Knowing that expertise might be lacking in the startup phase, outsourcing accounting services can offer the necessary guidance and support without having an in-house accounting team.
A Lack of Funds
It might go without saying that you aren’t going to have very much money at the start of your business journey. One look at your financial statements will prove that you don’t have the money right now to pay an expensive accounting firm to do this work. At the same time, as we talked about above, using the accounting software all on your own isn’t necessarily the best strategy.
Knowing that you don’t have the money for more expensive solutions, an outsourced accounting service is the way to go. You’ll get far better performance than you could ever get by handling the financial records on your own, yet you won’t have to spend the kind of money needed to get a top accounting firm to work in your office.
No Employees In Place
To add to your troubles in terms of producing financial statements and keeping financial records, you don’t have any existing employees in place who have been around for a long time and can handle the books efficiently without much trouble. You are building things from the ground up, so bringing in an outsourced bookkeeping service will give you an opportunity to put some early stage accounting processes in place and get the books moving in the right direction.
Outsourced Bookkeeping Services Clear Those Hurdles
It might seem like you have more problems than solutions in the early days of running your business, but that’s pretty much standard for this position. An accounting firm that is able to take on the duties that you need to have completed and won’t charge you big money for doing the work is sure to take your startup accounting process to a higher level. Forget about hiring a traditional accounting firm that works in person and close to your business and instead turn over your financial transactions to a company that knows how the power of an outsourced bookkeeping firm has the potential to change the game.
A Partner for a Bright Future
It’s easy to get bogged down in the here and now with a startup, and you certainly can’t afford to look too far down the line before you even get the ball rolling. However, the real goal with your startup is to reach new heights later on, and you won’t have to leave your outsourced bookkeeping team behind when that vision finally comes to life. In fact, it’s because of your outsourced bookkeeping firm that you will be able to see your vision come to life, as tracking financial transactions is one of the necessary functions that all businesses have to handle. Basic bookkeeping tasks might seem easy enough, but a good accounting system is about more than that – it’s about planning for the future and making sure that something like routine bookkeeping tasks isn’t what causes your company to fail.
We Are Ready to Grow with You
The growth phase of a startup is one of the most exciting times in the trajectory of any business. As your chosen outsourced accounting firm, we’ll make sure that the managing of your financial data is not what holds you back from the growth of your dreams. Our outsourced bookkeeping services are affordable enough for a young startup, yet robust enough to keep up with the requirements of a company that is starting to hit its stride. Don’t wait any longer to hire Swiftbooks as your outsourced accounting firm!
