Are Bookkeepers Becoming A Thing Of The Past?

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4 years ago

I grew up watching my father run his own small business. In addition to consistently working 12-14 hour days himself, he employed the same in-house bookkeeper for almost 20 years. Despite a number of merit-based salary increases, she was working at a bargain-basement hourly rate by the time she retired in 2005. The small businessman that employs a full-time in-house bookkeeper is quickly becoming a thing of the past. According to Salary.com, the current median salary of a full-time bookkeeper is $39,139/year. In 2004, the median salary was $28,570. The rising cost of this service makes it prohibitive to staff an individual or even a small team to accomplish this task. Beyond simply the cost, the risk of inaccurate figures or incorrect quarterly tax payments can be distressing to already overworked business owners.

Many small businessmen have ventured in one of two directions to circumvent this obstacle. More tech-savvy individuals can, with some time and effort, take care of most bookkeeping themselves via QuickBooks or some other sort of tracking program. The collected data can then be turned-over to a professional accounting or tax advising firm. This approach generally produces the most accurate and cost-effective reporting and tax payment results. The other option is for the business owner to take care of everything themselves, start-to-finish, which would, in addition to requiring a significant amount of specialized knowledge and experience, essentially turn them into their own full-time accountant.

About Five Stone

Five Stone is a full-service tax firm with offices in Texas and Switzerland. We help taxpayers who have fallen behind on their taxes, for one reason or another, find peace of mind by representing them before the IRS and settling their debt at much lower amounts. We exist to serve others and be good stewards for generations. If you have a tax debt, call us at 800.928.1930 for a free 15-minute consultation.