In 2025, the financial compliance of your organization will go hand-in-hand with your tax efficiency and the internal recordkeeping measures you take in order to comply with external audits and make order in your past ledgers. Bookkeeping, in the modern age, is no longer just a recommendation. It is a key part of doing business, and it represents the only way to avoid legal penalties from the federal authorities and to keep your financial activities properly ordered and compliant with the Texas legislative landscape.
The utilization of a San Antonio bookkeeping service is a way to ensure the proper filing of your tax records and to obtain the financial transparency necessary to attract external investment avenues. Do you want, for example, to collaborate with a local bank or obtain new financing from investors keen to enter new niche markets? In that case, one of the first things these individuals/organizations will look for will be the current status of your ledger data and the clarity of your profitability forecasts.
What Do You Risk?
For Texas businesses, bookkeeping is a way to avoid financial penalties that are often caused by mistakes in tax filings and it’s also the only real way to reduce inefficiencies in financial recordkeeping procedures, with a direct impact on long-term profitability. Bookkeeping, in the 21st century, is both an insurance policy against external audits as well as a financial strategy in its own right, which, in the right hands, can be utilized to strengthen your firm’s market position and make your services more attractive to potential investors.
There is no modern business development without a bookkeeping service and there are no profits without a proper financial development plan. Have you invested massively in the R&D of your products and services, and for this reason, were you forced to reduce the budget you can allocate to the management of ongoing financial recordkeeping procedures? Well, you could be making a huge mistake, as bookkeeping issues are one of the primary factors that can attract the unwanted attention of the IRS or the local comptroller.
Did you fail to file your tax returns in time? In that case, the IRS could fine you with 5% of the tax you owe, each month, with a total finable value of 25% of your total tax returns. Did you make a mistake in your sales tax calculation and that caused you to delay payment? In that case, the state comptroller could impose a penalty of 10% on your due amount plus interest. Have you failed to properly maintain the accuracy of your past ledgers? In such a scenario, the IRS might fine you upwards of $100,000. The sums involved are significant, and for many San Antonio-based SMEs, they can represent a bottleneck to their long-term expansion ambitions.
Is It Cost-Effective to Utilize an Outsourced Bookkeeping Service?
Bookkeeping is one of the core pillars of modern business development. However, it is not exactly the type of activity that requires in-house specialization. Yes, 64% of all US-based SMEs prefer to handle their own financial recordkeeping procedures and the market for highly-skilled San Antonio-based bookkeepers and CPAs is expanding year after year. That said, bookkeeping is one of the most outsourced business procedures out there, with no less than 90% of CFOs utilizing outsourced accounting functions in one way or another. What are the main reasons for relying on external help for internal ledger maintenance procedures? Well, let’s start with the most obvious of reasons: costs
Hiring a full-time bookkeeper, at least in Texas, will represent a financial commitment that will necessitate an investment fund of at least $100,000. Besides the salary, the specialists you hire will require access to ample office space, will need professional training before they can dive headfirst into your firm’s old financial data, and, not least, will require access to professional tools whose prices will vary depending on the complexity of your financial recordkeeping procedures.
Because of the economies of scale, an outsourced San Antonio bookkeeping service will be cheaper than hiring a new team of financial recordkeepers, and the costs will be more predictable, as your outsourced collaborators will require the same monthly fee regardless of the modifications happening in your activity sector. The services of external San Antonio bookkeepers will be scalable in accordance with your firm’s development forecasts, and will be fully remote, which can be an advantage if you’re planning to migrate your financial data from offline storage solutions to the cloud.
How Can Bookkeepers Aid Your CPA?
In the modern business climate, the roles of CPAs and bookkeepers often intersect, even if their core competencies differ quite significantly. Your hired financial recordkeeper could enter and reconcile your ongoing financial transactions or prepare the necessary documentation for surprise IRS audits and tax filings. Plus, the bookkeeper that handles your firm’s ledgers could record your employees’ payroll details, prepare monthly financial reports and reconcile your recordkeeping data with the ones available to the banks you collaborate with.
Meanwhile, the role of the CPAs will be to verify the documentation prepared by the bookkeeper, interpret the financial reports prepared by them, and fill out the documentation required for your firm’s tax returns, while also analyzing their potential for deductions. The main role of a bookkeeper will be to properly organize your organization’s financial transactions and perform regular audits of past books in order to find financial discrepancies that could be flagged by the fiscal authorities.
CPAs, on the other hand, have a more complex set of duties, and their role is to interpret your firm’s financial data, submit your tax returns and ensure your organization’s compliance with the IRS and the state comptroller. CPAs have the legal authority to represent your company in front of the IRS. Plus, they can only perform their job after they pass their Uniform CPA Examination and obtain their license from the TSBPA. The process to become a CPA in Texas is quite involved. However, in order for your business to keep its growth trajectory at a steady level, you will require the assistance of both licensed CPAs and financial recordkeepers, who will assist them in any way necessary.
About the Author
