Bookkeepers often offer a three-tiered approach to building and maintaining your company’s general financial processes and management. The first one is created by an accounting software specialist. He or she creates your accounting data file so that it’s suited to the custom needs of you and your business. They will also ensure that you have access to the software and reports as needed.

Next is the full-charge bookkeeper

We all know the usual duties of a bookkeeper: to track payables and receivables and keep all your business’s financial transactions documented. Sounds fairly simple, but there’s more to this job than meets the eye.

A full-charge bookkeeper can also manage your payroll, handle deposits, create and maintain monthly financial reports, manage the ever-changing world of sales taxes as well as quarterly taxes and withholding. Bookkeepers also reconcile bank statements to internal accounts and will even help you out during an internal or IRS audit.

Whether you want to get a loan for your business, answer an auditor, or simply plan next year’s budget for your business, you need the help of a full-charge bookkeeper. They can assist you in making sure that each of these tasks is completed correctly, in a timely manner, and that they are very accurate.

Between the accounting software specialist and the full-charge bookkeeper, you will have started to create a system of checks and balances within your business. Individual department finances will be recorded and analyzed by the bookkeeper, accounts receivables and payables reviewed and fulfilled, and the company’s spending is compared with its budget for a review that can help identify any ineffective spending to create a more accurate budget for the future.

And this is when we bring in the third prong of the bookkeeping service, the controller.

The controller keeps up with the company’s overall financial accountability and checks and balances. A controller reviews the bookkeeper’s ledger for error while also keeping the original accounting data file because it is important that any adjustments will not be made without approval. Lastly, a controller issues monthly financial reports highlighting any key issues that you need to be informed on and possibly change.