Best Practices for Bookkeeping Firm Owners on Hiring

Hi there. Welcome back. And this week I'm going to talk, or actually this whole month I'm doing a series of 4 shorter articles and it typically, I switch up the topics, but this month I really wanna focus on best practice for, best practices for accounting firm owners or bookkeeping firm owners, people such as yourself that are in a place where you're, and it could also be applicable to attorneys too. You're in a place where maybe you're a solo bookkeeping firm owner and you're rocking it, you're doing great and you're getting these leads coming in and you can't keep up with them. And I can still remember to this day when I figured out that I really needed to hire, it was at a point where I was mistake— forgetting to bill people. This is, which sounds insanely crazy. Nowadays you bill before you do the work and it's set up and it's fixed fee. But this was back when it was hourly. This is back in the Artesani Accounting days. Where I was just so tired. I was doing all this work head down and I didn't really take the time to build people. So how dumb is that? But I was doing so well and I didn't want to miss an opportunity. And it really was to the point where I was so exhausted. I was working weekends and nights and holidays, and it was just a lot to keep up with. And I thought I was doing the right thing, cuz what the heck, if I'm doing the work, there's no, I don't have to pay anybody. But in the long run, In the long run, it wasn't a wise decision because A, I was exhausted, B, I wasn't my 100% self. I was prone to making errors that way or forgetting things. And I think that the decision to bring on a team member is a difficult one. You can find that you're sitting back going, "How do I know when it's the right time? And what if I bring somebody on and then the work stops and I'm now responsible for this person's life?" And that's a big part of making that decision to hire. And I think the best place to start is to really take a good look at, a good honest look at what your firm needs, whether you keep a task list, maybe you keep like a Trello board or something just to keep track of your work and know that there's gonna be a cost to it. But sometimes the cost outweighs the fact that you're gonna have more time to bring on more work and you can bill your type of work at an hourly, higher hourly rate. So I didn't need to be doing bank feeds at this point. Point. I had outgrown that part of my life. So you need to find someone skilled, obviously, and you need someone that knows the software. So that's key. If you're all your clients in QuickBooks, you need to have somebody that's proficient in QuickBooks. Although I have to tell you that hiring somebody who says they're certified or they show they're certified doesn't mean that they're a great bookkeeper. I've had people work for me that were advanced certified. They were great test takers. They really didn't know, they really weren't great at bookkeeping. You need to know if there are good bookkeeping skills. Anybody can learn the software. It's the bookkeeping skills and understanding full picture of how a firm works. You could have somebody working only in accounts receivable. They're not gonna understand the payables or journal entries or payroll. All that stuff takes time. And if you're willing to hire somebody who is lesser qualified, maybe they've been working on a phone, answering phones as a support person somewhere, and they wanna learn the skills. You can get them in at a lower price, but that's gonna take some of your time away of your already busy schedule to train them. But sometimes that really works out better in the long run. You're gonna train them in your work, work schedule, your workflows, products that you use. They're gonna need to learn, learn that. I highly recommend getting it set up before you hire. Get all the work set up so that this person can go in and tick off a checklist. Asana is a great product. Mm-hmm. Asana. I always wanna call it asana 'cause I'm a yoga teacher, but Asana, which is spelled the same way, is a great product. It's free and it's got all the bells and whistles. So it's a great starting product. We use Financial Sense. There's a lot of other products out there, but you need to grow into them. And starting out, it might not be the best. Although if you can afford it, get into a product that's good because you're gonna grow and keep adding people. Then you don't have to keep reinventing the wheel and moving from product to product. Where do you look for somebody? Look to referrals, check around. If you're on Facebook, say, anybody interested in doing this kind of work? Get a referral. Maybe if somebody knows somebody, say, hey, if you know somebody who's looking for work and they wanna do bookkeeping work, maybe talk to your tax professional people. Just get the word out there that you are hiring and you're looking for a specific kind of bookkeeper. Now, do you wanna hire a legal bookkeeper? They're very rare. So finding a bookkeeper that may be really proficient in construction, it's not a hard sweep over to legal accounting. So know that's a thing. You might find more people that work with construction firms or contractors, and then they can shift over and you just have to teach 'em the terminology and also about the trust accounting. But that's not a hard thing to learn if they've already been working with, in a construction field. Or if they've got basic good bookkeeping skills, that also will help. Try to get some credentials. I don't really put too much weight into that because you don't really know who you're talking to. It could be their Uncle Louie and masking as a prior employer. It's really hard to do that. But if you can get them to give you some referrals, make sure that they're certified in the software so you don't have to really train on that too much. And then —ensure that they can deliver the work on time. So that's the other issue. If you go the route of hiring a contractor, they might be their own boss, and then they do the contracting on the side. And if that's the case, their work will take priority over yours. So be really firm about tasks and deadlines and dates. And maybe if you do the contractor route, test them out for 90 days before you actually do that. Full onboarding of a, of a complete employment agreement. Also, if you hire a person in-house or somebody that comes to your office, that's a little bit different because you have a little bit more control there. But you want to have some good bookkeeping basics and good bookkeeping habits down in place. Have that customer database available and set the standards right from the get-go so they know exactly where they're at. I don't want somebody who says, "Oh, I know QuickBooks Desktop in and out because online is where to go." And that usually is an indication of somebody that's a little bit older, not necessarily, but you really want someone who's comfortable with technology. That's forward thinking. Automation takes a lot of the steps away. And if they're doing things manually, that's not gonna really be helpful to your firm. So make sure you have a solid onboarding process. Showing the new hire how to use the accounts, where to go, how you want to see the work. Take the time to train them from the beginning, even if they're an outsourced global member or a contractor version or somebody sitting in the office. You are going to have to take the time and do a good job at the very beginning, or you're going to face turnover. And turnover for bookkeeping roles is about 19%. Yeah. Of all people that are candidates that get hired and onboarded leave the job. So know that's a fact. And you don't want to invest— you want to invest the time in the right— in the upfront part of the engagement with them. It's time well spent. Make sure you have room in your calendar for that. This is a great time of the year to be doing that when we're not so burdened with deadlines. And so that's really important too. So start to look, get yourself set up first, then start to look around, see if you can find somebody. And then make sure you have the time in the schedule, in your calendar, to take the time to let them learn your processes, your rules, your dates, your deadlines, and they get to know your client as well. Hope that's helpful, and we'll see you all next week. Bye now. Bye.