9 Best Online Bookkeeping Services 2024

You can pay for additional tax services by adding BenchTax to your bookkeeping services. Outsourced virtual accounting services solve this by deploying the most recent technology and integrations. Just like their accountants, the technology they use ultimately determines how they will perform so virtual accounting services make sure they do not skimp out on them. With most outsourced accounting service providers, you will be assigned a dedicated bookkeeper. Service providers that realize the importance of this factor make sure they tell you how many years of experience their accountants have. Along with offering the typical outsourced bookkeeping services, AccountingDepartment.com provides outsourced controller services.

They must offer flat rate pricing — a monthly fee in exchange for a well-defined set of deliverables. At my company, one of the specific things we teach accountants and bookkeepers who want to run a virtual bookkeeping service is that they should specialize in a few industries. This is true of any bookkeeper — in person or virtual — that you would hire.

How to Find the Best Virtual Bookkeeping Service for Your Business

Outsourcing your bookkeeping and accounting also eliminates the scope of fraud that can easily happen when bookkeeping is done by employees. With a virtual accounting service taking care of your bookkeeping and taxes, imagine the amount virtual accountant of time you will be able to save. It also saves you the time that you would have wasted in correcting errors made by accountants. While choosing a virtual accounting service, check for how long the service providers have been around.

• This is true of any bookkeeper — in person or virtual — that you would hire.
• 1-800Accountant offers a nationwide team of Certified Public Accountants (CPAs), enrolled agents, tax professionals, and other experts lending their expertise to a full array of accounting services.
• With this review, we did most of the leg work to narrow the list from 20 of the top online accounting firms to five of the best in various categories.
• However, when you hire a virtual accounting service, you pay a monthly fee in which you get a team of accountants and up-to-date technology.
• We have also included a section that will help you choose the best virtual bookkeeping service.

Connect with experts year-round for advice and guidance, with best-in-class tools to support you as your business grows. The benefit of using a virtual bookkeeper as a business owner is that it is often cheaper than hiring someone local to work on-site. The bookkeeper can be paid as a contractor and work as little or as much as the business needs. For a bookkeeper, working virtually provides convenience in the form of schedule flexibility and the ability to work from home.

Welcome to Virtual Accounting

But Merritt Bookkeeping’s most stand-out feature might be its in-depth financial reports. Most other virtual bookkeeping services give you basic financial reports only, like income statements and balance sheets. In contrast, Merritt gives you more detailed reports like forecasting and quarterly comparisons. Virtual accounting firms are much less expensive to start than local accountant offices. Here are your biggest takeaways from this remote accounting team guide.

• Examples include bookkeeping journal entries, bookkeeping ledger, bookkeeping reconciliation and bookkeeping trial balance.
• Build out your tech stack for a successful virtual accounting department.
• Merritt Bookkeeping understands that and makes the process very simple and short.
• FinancePal is best for small businesses that need bookkeeping assistance, including catch-up bookkeeping, entity formation and tax filing.
• The sooner you start using an outsourced accounting service, the sooner you start saving on time, cost, and costly mistakes.

Additionally, virtual accounting services have a team of accounting professionals, so if you need more than one resource, your virtual accountant can easily involve his or her team to ensure your needs are met. Its bookkeeping service comes with its Enterprise plan, which costs $399 per month when billed annually. You’ll get a dedicated accountant, year-round tax advice, tax prep, bookkeeping and financial reports. An accounting firm is fully staffed with experts to offer bookkeeping and accounting services for your business. It prepares financial records to help you track your revenues and expenses. It can also conduct an audit to organize your processes and controls to ensure records are properly kept with taxation services to help you prepare tax returns and advise you on how to reduce your tax liability.

Traditional Accounting vs. Virtual CPA Services

As this list shows, the offerings and pricing of accounting firms for small businesses vary widely. The key is understanding your accounting needs and the value of having someone from outside your business fulfilling those functions. Even the most expensive firm on this list is probably less costly than hiring someone to perform them in-house. Virtual CPA services eliminate the need for physical office space, allowing nonprofits and small businesses to save on overhead expenses such as rent and utilities. These cost savings can be reinvested into other critical areas of the organization, promoting growth and sustainability.

However, many small businesses are still warming up to the idea of a virtual accountant. All price plans include unlimited accounts and are billed annually upfront with no early termination fee. The Starter plan starts at $499 per month for companies with monthly expenses between zero and $15,000. The Core plan starts at $699 per month and includes expedited books delivery and monthly phone reviews.