6 Best Bookkeeping Services for Online Businesses
Keeping good books is useful not only from a business standpoint – messy books and inaccurate financial reports can get you in all sorts of legal trouble.
Depending on the jurisdiction you are operating in, there are requirements related to professional bookkeeping. Some requirements exist irrespective of where your activities are based, and the benefits of professional bookkeeping are universal.
Many small businesses, especially one-man-shows, choose to do their accounts themselves, in those cases where a certified bookkeeper is not a legal requirement. But even then, as a business grows, it might be better to delegate the complex task of bookkeeping to a professional service. And some of them are specialized in doing business online.
We have selected several bookkeeping businesses offering a variety of services.
Bookkeeper is a one-stop shop for all your bookkeeping needs. This service uses the QuickBooks bookkeeping software, and will purchase and install an instance of QuickBooks for you. Depending on the package, you will also receive customized financial reports and tracking features.
This service prides itself on customer satisfaction, with a team of bookkeepers on call, as well as a dedicated bookkeeper who will teleconfer with you and go over your financial reports.
Bookkeeper offers two pricing packages, depending on the number of transactions you want serviced monthly. Transactions include invoices to buyers, bills, and reconciling transactions. They will also monitor your buyers‘ payments. The price is the same for both cash- and accrual-based businesses, a rarity among online bookkeeping services.
Bench is an online bookkeeper service which caters to cash-based businesses. Each client gets a dedicated bookkeeper to show them the ropes and gather all the necessary data from them. Once a month, they will import all your transaction data and get to work on your monthly reports, allowing you to monitor your business health by tracking cash flow and expenses. Bench uses its own software for bookkeeping, which you can access using your mobile device, and which you can also use to message Bench staff.
The drawback: Bench does not handle your taxes, payroll, or invoices. They will, however, handle the paperwork for your tax report even though you will need to file it yourself. They also offer a special service, BenchRetro, in case you are several years behind on your bookkeeping.
Bench has five pricing packages depending on your monthly expenses.
Bookkeeper360 is an online service which serves both cash- and accrual-based businesses. This bookkeeping service uses both Xero and Quickbox bookkeeping software packages, and you can also use them to help you set up QuickBooks or Xero while doing your own books, if that is what you prefer.
This service boasts of being 100% US-based, which is excellent if you are subject to US taxes or have an overlap in opening hours with the US.
Bookkeeper360 has complex pricing packages with prices depending on which operations you wish the service to perform or how frequently you require their services each month. The prices go up if you use some of the specialized services, such as HR and payroll, tax planning, inventory management and others.
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QuickBooks Live started off as an online software platform for bookkeeping, which also offers its own bookkeeping service – basically a live help or how-to coupled with the industry standard software. A dedicated member of staff will set you up with your own QuickBooks account, get you started on your books, categorize and reconcile your transactions, and settle your accounts each month. While QuickBooks live will not file your tax return, they will prepare a year-end report to help you.
The bookkeeping software is teeming with advanced features, allowing you to invoice your buyers, separate income and expenses, manage and pay your bills and organize receipts with the basic package, track attendance, projects and contractor with the next one up, and assign custom roles to users, automate approvals and reminders, and access online training and support on demand. If you are able to do at least some of the work yourself, all you need to do is find the pricing package you need.
Merritt is a bookkeeping service for cash-based businesses which uses QuickBooks as a bookkeeping platform. They offer a basic package which includes automated monthly collection of bank statements and furnishes you with easy to understand monthly reports. Unfortunately, Merritt will not do your taxes or payroll for you, so you will need to outsource those functions to another service in case you need them. For a self-employed person running a cash-based business, though, Merrit is a good choice.
inDinero is an online bookkeeping service dedicated to helping start-ups. It offers automated transaction imports, monthly reconciliations, invoicing, and a mobile app for you to check regularly on your finances. It runs on its own software which boasts scalability, providing you with the accounting and tax services you need for every stage of your company‘s development.
This service also offers a consultancy feature, with an on-demand CFO at the ready to help you out with planning and analysis. inDinero‘s tax experts and certified accountants are on standby for all tax issues, including savings.
InDinero has two pricing packages, a basic one for new companies looking to manage day-to-day bookkeeping, and a custom one for accrual accounting, with payroll, consultancy, multiple entity support, analysis, and more.
In Conclusion
Now, if you are running an online business, you know enough to make your own decisions. The choice of bookkeeper is, ultimately, up to you. If you are behind on your books and need to catch up, maybe Bench, with its retro service, is just what you need. If you have only just set up and are looking to grow, inDinero‘s consultancy features may be of good use. In either case, most business owners did not start a business in order to deal with accounting all day (except, notably, accountancy firms). This sort of thing is best left to professionals. If your business does not have in-house accounting, this list of online services is certainly going to have just what you need.
