Run a business and need help with your accounting and taxes? Hire bookkeepers in Kenya working online as freelancers.
Recently, while working on which categories to add to Niabusiness Kenya Classifieds, I couldn’t help but think about how accounting / taxes / cash flow is one of those things a lot of businesses (and freelancers) have to approach with tact if they want peace of mind – if they don’t want to bleed money for simple simple mistakes.
So, I thought that this area of business deserves a category of its own – a section just dedicated to helping individuals and businesses find bookkeepers (help with their bookkeeping).
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Why outsource your bookkeeping needs
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There are several benefits to getting someone to look into your books – and help you get everything in order. When you outsource your bookkeeping, you get to:
To save time. Pouring over all the information / data you generate as a business, going through every transaction, going through every expense can take a lot of hours from you – and then you may still get some things wrong.
Sometimes just because you lack the expertise bookkeepers and accountants have, you might spend time doing your books yourself but still find little things that can be trimmed off to save you business from wasting a lot of time in the future in engagements that aren’t really profitable.
So, when you hire somebody experienced, chances are that:
One, they will help you save time now. And you can channel that time towards more sales generating activities.
And two, they will save you a lot of time in the future. From the insight they glean when doing your books, they can advice you:
- on which clients to drop
- on which items to stop paying for
- on alternative suppliers to go with
- items to drop from your inventory
To get the bookkeeping task completed without spending a lot of money on it. If you can’t afford someone in-house, outsourcing usually gets you the same results an employee would, but at a fraction of what you would have paid in salary in a month or two.
To get insight from a professional on how to better allocate your resources for the next quarter / year. So, a good bookkeeper, especially one who has experience working with other businesses in your niche / industry, should be able to give you insights that can help grow your business – increase sales and bring more profits through the door.
To remain tax-compliant without spending hours pouring over every detail in your accounting software (installed on your computer/ cloud-based provider or a mobile app), your receipts / expense reports. Just outsource the work and the bookkeeper will reconcile everything for you.
What is the process of hiring a freelance accountant / bookkeeper online on Niabusiness like?
Once you have all the necessary documents needed for a bookkeeper to do their work, you can start your search for a freelance to outsource the bookkeeping work to.
On Niabusiness, the main category to look for bookkeeping help is the Incorporation, Bookkeeping & Accounting category.
There is another category that you might want to look into as well to find help – the eCitizen / KRA / NTSA / Taxes category.
Take a look at the ad listings in these categories. See if there are freelancers that have experience working with a business similar to yours (type, size, business model or niche) by clicking the ads and reading the extra details (where freelancers go a little into details about what they can really help you with).
You will find one or two (maybe even more) that you can start talking to. Reply to their ads to start a conversation and wait for their email.
Once they reply, go into the specifics of what you are looking for, perhaps even give them a little background about how you have been handling your accounting / bookkeeping matters all this while.
If you have been doing your books yourself, tell them why that is changing. If you have been using any accounting tools or software, tell them about those as well – how they have helped you streamline the bookkeeping side of your business. If you have not seen really strong reasons to keep using a particular piece of software, tell them about that as well.
At this point the freelancer will tell you about the things they will need from you in order for them to deliver on the work you outsource to them.
Then you will agree on how best you can send those things to them. For example:
- you might choose to send some documents (or copies) over to then via courier
- you might scan the documents they want and host them on an account you give then access to (for example on Google Drive or Dropbox). Or you may agree on getting them the data they need via email (as attachments).
- you might give them access to your accounting software. If you use a cloud-based solution, you can just send them temporary login details via email.
And then you will agree on how much you are willing to pay for the service.
From there, they will just get to work, and send you word when they are done.
At which point you can just pay them, or request some revisions before paying them.
That is all there is to it.
Make the necessary documents / data ready.
Then find someone to outsource work to in the Accounting / Bookkeeping category on Niabusiness.com.
Some freelancers are also always ready to help you with other things, like filing your tax returns via the KRA (Kenya Revenue Authority) portal. If you need help with such, ask the bookkeeper you end up working with if they offer this service as well. If not, find someone in the eCitizen / KRA / NTSA / Taxes category on Niabusiness.
And always remember that if you don’t find what you are looking on Niabusiness.com, if your needs are really unique and not captured by most listings you find on the site for example, you can just use the Place Ad option on the homepage to create your own listing and have freelancers contact you.