Beware of Bargains in Parachutes, Brain Surgery and Accounting Services

Aren't you tired of paying high prices for CPA and other Accounting services?

Isn't it tempting to just buy QuickBooks and let some low cost Bookkeeper or Accountant enter your data in for you? After all, what could go wrong? I mean the software practically does all the Accounting by itself, right?

Well, not exactly. Properly setup and monitored, QuickBooks does allow people with lower level Accounting skills, keep a set of books without too many errors.

Improperly setup and not monitored, you can create a set of Accounting records that are for all intents and purposes, totally unuseable.

Based on my experience, what I have observed is that the most expensive Bookkeepers and Accountants are those that charge the lowest rate per hour. What you save on the front end, you more than lose on the back end with messed up payroll taxes, sales & B&O taxes and financial statements. Also, don't forget the cost of having to pay someone else to come in and fix the problems.

So how do you avoid this situation?

If you are using QuickBooks, make sure that they are a Certified ProAdvisor. That will demonstate that they have been tested on the basic knowledge of the program.

Also, ask them to explain to you how Items are used in QuickBooks.( I will cover Items in a later post). If they don't understand Items, then they don't understand QuickBooks, no matter what else they may tell you.