Bookkeepers keep tabs on financials

“What I do is bookkeeping, which is what many CPAs call write-up work,” said Lisa Pearson, owner of Lisa’s Bookkeeping & Office Services. “It’s the daily entries in a business, the daily transactions. I do things like payroll, payroll tax, sales tax ... . But I don’t do anything that has to do with income tax.”

Pearson, who has a degree in accounting and is a QuickBooks Certified Professional Adviser, serves as a consultant for some clients, answering questions and problem-solving.

“A lot of times I get calls from people when the husband starts a business and wants the wife to do the books, but she’s really not qualified,” Pearson said, noting that her company will provide on-site work for some clients depending on the scope of the work.

In many cases, though, Pearson provides full bookkeeping services, often communicating directly with the clients’ CPAs.

“I like to talk to the CPA and stay in touch with them and make sure I’m doing things the way the CPA wants them done,” she added.

Pearson said she doesn’t compete with CPA firms, but provides complementary services, and she said she often receives referrals from them.

Springfield CPA firm Kirkpatrick Phillips & Miller CPAs PC works mainly with companies that perform bookkeeping functions in-house, though KPM can handle the data entry if needed, according to manager Joy Ward.

“We try to extend our services to what a client needs,” she said, noting that KPM’s fees also vary by service.

Just as there are different choices for tracking financial data, there are different types of bookkeeping services and firms.

Annette’s Bookkeeping Service, for example, focuses primarily on tax work, according to President Annette McEvoy.

“We do not do daily bookkeeping. We don’t pay people’s bills or bill their customers,” she said. “Generally we do monthly accounting services, providing payroll, financial statements, bank reconciliations, etc.,” and filing taxes.

Michael Babcock, a CPA and certified financial planner, is among local CPAs who prefer not to spend time on bookkeeping functions. That preference, he noted, often works out in the best interest of clients.

“Using a CPA for things like payroll taxes and other more routine bookkeeping items is going to be more costly than using a bookkeeper or maybe doing it internally,” he said.

What it comes down to, he said, is helping clients figure out what will work best for their companies.

“I’ve got some clients that (are) perfectly comfortable doing most of that accounting and bookkeeping ... internally,” Babcock said. “But there are others (who) don’t want to mess with it, or they’d just as soon outsource it and know that it’s being done properly (and) those are really the cases where a bookkeeper makes a lot of sense.”