Milwaukee's best bookkeeping services for small business

Many small business owners find producing financial statements to be a painful exercise. Often they are unsure why it must be done. Most common answers – in the order that we most often hear them are:

1.) To give to my accountant so he can do my taxes.
2.) To give to the bank when I want to open an account or line of credit.
3.) To give to the bank when applying for a mortgage or refinancing.
4.) To know how we’re doing.

It is the final answer that is the most important to the Giersch Group. We operated as strictly management consultants for 13 years prior to taking on our first bookkeeping client. In those years, our constant focus was always to stress to our clients the importance of timely accurate financial information. While most clients knew the importance of their P&L, few spent much time looking at their balance sheet, and even fewer spent any time looking at a cash flow statement.

We also found that most small business owners thought about their money in terms of “cash” rather than “accrual” accounting. This leads to many problems with cash flow, AR and debt. To remedy these problems, we decided to start a bookkeeping firm that would solve the lack of timely accurate financial information in the small enterprise world.

In doing so, we have made those bankers and accountants very happy. Now, when they get the financials from our clients, they know what they are looking at, and they are pleased with the timeliness and accuracy of the information.

There are many benefits to hiring a firm to manage your financial systems.

SECURITY: Small businesses and nonprofits are often the victims of fraud when one person has too much access and freedom with the books. Having adequate separation of duties is difficult at the small enterprise level due to the lack of staff. Hiring a firm to help you with your services solves this problem as the Giersch Group will assign at least two people to your account, along with a senior staff person who will do the monthly and quarterly reviews.

FLEXIBILITY: Whereas a single part-time bookkeeper may need time off or may not be able to provide more hours during busy seasons, the Giersch Group has the flexibility to staff up during the times you need us most.

COST: Hiring a full-time bookkeeper can come with a great deal of overhead, benefits, and employer taxes. The Giersch Group’s fees are often equal to a bookkeeper’s base pay, with no additions for benefits, overhead, or employer taxes.

QUALITY: An individual bookkeeper is only as good as his or her training and experience. The Giersch Group has a team of professionals that will work on your books, and there will always be two senior staff who will review your books monthly, quarterly, and annually. In addition, we will help you learn how to read your own financials and teach you the basics of managing your books at no extra charge. In addition, we can provide many other in-depth services that can help you better manage your enterprise using the data provided by your financials.

The Giersch Group is more than an employee or a bookkeeper, we are a team that is here to partner with you on running your organization based on timely and accurate financial data.

Basic bookkeeping services for a privately held, owner-operated business under $3M in annual revenue can cost anywhere in the range of $5000 to $40,000 per year depending upon the amount and types of services required. The most important variable is whether you need full-time or part-time bookkeeping and whether or not your bookkeeper is being hired as an office manager and administrator.

Part time bookkeepers range from $25 to $75 per hour, while full time bookkeepers who perform other office duties can range from $30,000 to $50,000 annual salary. Many entrepreneurs will outsource their bookkeeping because of the technical nature of financial accounting. Hiring an individual bookkeeper or using a temporary placement service is common, but turnover can be detrimental to the integrity of financial statements. In addition, low cost, hourly bookkeepers often do not have the technical expertise to handle more sophisticated issues like sales tax filings and certain audit procedures.

Learn more about pricing for Giersch Group bookkeeping services and why our approach to bookkeeping is better for small businesses.

When a bookkeeper is stealing from a company, it is often a result of a lack of financial oversight by the owner and poor separation of duties in the financial controls.

When your bookkeeper is stealing from you it is common to find the following conditions present in the company:

• Owner rarely asks for detailed financial statements
• Owner does not review the bank account balances on a regular basis
• Owner is not comfortable with "the numbers" and leaves it all up to the bookkeeper

These conditions constitute a lack of oversight and do not guarantee theft, but addressing these three items alone can usually prevent theft and embezzlement in a small business.

Regarding financial controls, companies that experience theft often have the following symptoms:

• Bookkeeper has control over all financial data input
• Bookkeeper has control over the financial reporting (or there is no reporting)
• Bookkeeper has access to cash
• Bookkeeper has permission to make transactions to your account through online banking or in person
• Bookkeeper is in control of who has access to financial information, including bank statement

These conditions constitute a poor separation of duties. The separation of duties is a common issue in small businesses and is difficult to overcome. However, these conditions do not prove that your bookkeeper is stealing, they just make it very easy for that person to do so.

Signs that you may currently have an embezzlement problem include:

• Difficulty getting reports from the bookkeeper on the financial state of the company, and/or receiving reports that are confusing and unclear
• Resistance by the bookkeeper to allowing any outside access to the books, such as bringing in consultants, switching payroll providers, hiring an audit firm, etc.
• Difficulty in getting a bank statement from the bookkeeper, no longer seeing them come in the mail, etc.
• Complaints from vendors about late payments, incurring of late fees, missed payments, etc.
• Frustration with the bookkeeper by other members of the company, often because of their dictatorial control over all things financial.

This last point, this is something that the owner can often see as a positive, feeling that the bookkeeper is keeping a close watch on the money. This is okay, as long as the owner is also keeping a close watch on the money. The surest way to avoid embezzlement is to ask for a full set of financial statements every month (P&L, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow Statement) along with the bank statements.

It is easy enough for the owner to get daily bank account balances sent to their inbox or to review them online periodically to make sure that they match with the numbers on the Balance Sheet. Finally, a working cash flow forecast that ties to the bank every Monday is an excellent way to manage cash levels and prevent fraud.

Contact Milwaukee's best small business bookkeeping firm for accounting services you can trust.

A company makes a profit when its revenues exceed its expenses. Profits are usually measured at certain fiscal periods, such as monthly, quarterly and annual profits. Profits are listed on the bottom of the Profit & Loss Statement (hence the term "bottom line"). Profit should not be confused with money in the bank, even in a purely cash business or a business that makes its money at the point of sale. This is because the receipt of revenue and the payment of expenses are rarely matched chronologically due to the nature of business transactions.

When a company is unclear about the amount of profit it is making this is usually caused by weak financial data and poor accounting practices.

Confusion over the amount of profit a company is making can also be due to the different types of profit that are possible. Gross Profit is known as the amount of money left over after direct costs for the production of good or services (aka, costs of goods sold) have been taken out of the company. Gross Profit is not pure profit because it does not take into account overhead or fixed expenses.

Once fixed or overhead expenses have been taken out, what remains is Net Operating Income. This is the amount of money left over after all costs to operate the business have been taken out. However, some costs, such as refunds, interest, or owner draw may come out below the Net Operating Income line. Once all of these additional costs or revenues (often called "other income/expense") are taken out, the bottom line is Net Income. This is considered by most to be the only measure of pure profit.

The surest way to track if your company is making a profit, and what cost structures are impacting that profit, is to make a business model for your company. A business model is a Profit and Loss Statement representation of your company with % of revenues tracked on major cost centers. The following business model represents the different kinds of profit and how ABZ, Inc. turns a dollar of revenue into a dollar of profit.