Yes, virtual and outsourced bookkeeping is just as legitimate as in-house bookkeeping and accounting. However, as with any in-person accounting professionals you’d trust with your financial data, you should always verify a bookkeeping firm’s credentials before committing to a monthly plan. And on the accounting software front, Bookkeeper360 syncs with both Xero and QuickBooks Online. Merritt Bookkeeping automates some of the most time-consuming bookkeeping tasks — for instance, reconciling accounts, balancing books, and updating financial reports — so you can focus on running your business.

In addition to its real-time dashboard, which offers self-support features, clients can tap into inDinero’s support team via phone, email, or live chat. Small businesses that want to get to the next accounting and bookkeeping services level need to have a firm grasp of their finances and the capacity to plan for growth. One great solution is hiring an online accounting firm that can fulfill the need for a reasonable budget.

How To Choose a Virtual Bookkeeper for Your Business

If you already work with an accountant or CPA, chances are good they prefer to work with QuickBooks rather than with proprietary software like Bench. Improve your business credit history through tradeline reporting, know your borrowing power from your credit details, and access the best funding – only at Nav. Sign up to receive more well-researched small business articles and topics in your inbox, personalized for you. We consider the opinions of users and the service’s ratings on various review sites. These criteria were disregarded for providers where no reviews were found. When an invoice is past due, follow these five steps to collect outstanding payments so you can get paid sooner.

Customized pricing is often available for large enterprise customers. Some companies, such as Wave, also provide basic accounting software for free. Although the monthly cost of QuickBooks Live may seem high at first glance, it actually falls in-line with many of the other bookkeeping services on this list. As an insider in the cloud accounting world, I can tell you that many virtual bookkeeping services don’t follow the best practices that have been listed above. If you don’t walk away from your initial interactions with your prospective virtual bookkeeping service feeling 100% confident that this company has your back, then just say no.

Why You Can Trust Forbes Advisor Small Business

If they’re not efficient about this stage of doing business, this may be a sign that they won’t be efficient once you are a client. This way you don’t have to rely on the claims they make about what they can do for you. If they are offering advice that others find useful, then you will be able to see that rather than simply taking their word for it. If your prospective virtual bookkeeping service understands the value of adding to the conversation, then it is a good sign that they will be genuinely helpful to your business. But there’s more than one virtual accounting company in the world, and solutions range from on-demand CFO services to simple pay-by-the-hour book balancing. Below, we review the best virtual and outsourced accounting services for small-business owners like you.

• Pricing for commercial accounting software is often straightforward.
• The company offers a range of plans based on which accounting method you use and how often you wish to receive reports and updates.
• Each plan comes with a finance expert, automated transaction imports, P&L, balance sheet and cash flow statements.
• They must offer flat rate pricing — a monthly fee in exchange for a well-defined set of deliverables.
• Typically, bookkeepers cannot file tax returns on behalf of other companies on their own.
• She writes about business and personal credit, financial strategies, loans, and credit cards.

The service doesn’t include financial advisory services, tax advice, facilitating the filing of income or sales tax returns, creating or sending 1099s, or management of payroll. QuickBooks Online offers Full Service Payroll for an additional cost. Forbes Advisor analyzed 13 online bookkeeping services and considered 15 metrics such as price, features, customer service, ease of use, integrations and service level. We also looked at real customer experiences to determine if their expectations were met based on what each company promised.