What is a Virtual Bookkeeper? Definition, Examples, & Costs

Keep that in mind as you search for the right virtual bookkeeper for your small business. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services. For example, if your business receives a lot of physical invoices, you might assume that digitizing those documents would create a bottleneck. That’s not the case — provided that you’re working with the right tools. While traditional bookkeeping methods have served businesses well for decades, they often require extensive manual labor and are susceptible to human error. Additionally, maintaining an in-house bookkeeping department can be costly for small and medium-sized businesses, especially considering overhead costs such as salaries, benefits, and office space.

You can have peace of mind about managing your finances properly, knowing you can reach the growth objectives you set. This is because you will get strategic finance support, which includes features like forecasting and even fundraising. Pilot Tax experts help you stay on track by making sure you stay ahead of deadlines and making tax filing super easy. This way you don’t have to rely on the claims they make about what they can do for you.

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Businesses use virtual bookkeepers for several reasons, including cost-effectiveness, flexibility, and access to specialized expertise. Virtual bookkeepers operate remotely, eliminating the need for businesses to maintain in-house accounting departments or hire full-time staff. They can provide a wide range of bookkeeping services tailored to each client’s needs, from basic data entry and reconciliation to more complex financial analysis and reporting.

Whether managing increased transaction volumes, reconciling accounts, or preparing financial reports, virtual bookkeepers can adapt to meet the evolving needs of growing businesses. In today’s digital era, many businesses operate remotely or have team members working from different locations. Virtual bookkeeping aligns perfectly with this setup, enabling seamless collaboration and access to financial data from anywhere with an internet connection. Whether managing expenses, invoicing clients, or tracking revenue, virtual bookkeeping ensures remote teams stay organized and informed.

How to choose a virtual bookkeeper

Virtual bookkeeping is a more efficient and convenient solution for all kinds of businesses and nonprofit organizations. As with all things outsourced, what you pay for a virtual bookkeeper will depend greatly on where they are located, what their level of expertise is, and what their specific responsibilities will be. That said, a fair range to expect for a hire outside of the US is around $7-$20 for simple, average, bookkeeping tasks. If you want a full charge bookkeeper, you will pay about $3-$8 more per hour. If you actually want someone who can do more of an accountant’s type of work, you could be looking at $50 or more per hour.

• During this meeting remotely, the client outlines their specific financial needs, goals, and preferences.
• It might be about relating to where they are in their business journey and striking the right tone.
• Although the term usually refers to external companies or freelancers hired for your bookkeeping needs, virtual bookkeeper jobs can also include internal bookkeepers who work remotely.
• Assigning tasks is easy and visual, and you can even automate your workflow to send reminders directly to assignees.
• An experienced remote bookkeeping service has the bandwidth to take on extra work as and when you need it, with no worries about finding new hires or adapting your office space.
• Certain industries like healthcare, legal services, and finance have unique accounting requirements and regulatory standards.

As a bookkeeping service, you can provide companies with better and more comprehensive data. And because you work from home, you may work with fewer distractions (and stress!), which in turn makes you more efficient. Virtual bookkeepers also make themselves available for discussions around budget planning, late customer payments, cash flow, and any other finance-related questions. And it is, but you may still be asking yourself, “Well, what’s it like to run a virtual bookkeeping business?

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A Thomson Reuters study saw that 36% of people said that working remotely had a strongly positive effect on their wellbeing, while another 35% said it had a slightly positive impact. Working remotely has proven to reduce stress and improve overall work-life balance, making employees more likely to stay with your company long term and be happier in their roles. Remote work also has shown to reduce mental health-related sick days, meaning employees use PTO for positive vacation experiences that facilitate better work-life balance.

• They automatically import all your business transactions, categorize them for you, and produce monthly and year-end financial reports.
• GitLab talks about the importance of displaying your values and reinforcing them in a place where everyone can access them.
• The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that bookkeepers overall earned a median annual salary of ​$45,560​, or ​$21.90​ per hour, as of 2021.
• As the number of customers and financial transactions your business deals with increases, so will the complexity and hours of bookkeeping support you need.
• Whether managing increased transaction volumes, reconciling accounts, or preparing financial reports, virtual bookkeepers can adapt to meet the evolving needs of growing businesses.
• When you’re trying to reach prospects nationally instead of locally, marketing becomes more complex.
• This is true of any bookkeeper — in person or virtual — that you would hire.

It focuses on tasks such as data entry, invoicing, and reconciliations. Gone are the days of tedious manual data entry and stacks of paper ledgers. Businesses are now embracing the virtual to streamline their financial management processes.

How to Choose a Virtual Bookkeeper

Today’s virtual bookkeeping tools make the bookkeeping process much more streamlined and efficient. These same tools can also be used in-house by an internal accounting team. Since they’re designed what is virtual bookkeeping to work remotely, teams can use them anywhere, even if they’re working in a traditional office. These tasks can be completed internally, or they can be farmed out as an external service.

• This is especially true because small businesses may not have a full-time CFO or an in-house accounting department, but they still need to generate financial reports.
• Here are a few key tips to help you along the way in your virtual journey.
• They analyze financial data, interpret trends, and provide insights to help businesses make informed decisions and achieve their financial goals.
• Alright, we know you may be a little tired — but we promise you can get started on your virtual bookkeeping practice in eight steps.
• Cloud-based accounting software like QuickBooks Online will have security features, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
• In a typical work week as a virtual bookkeeper, you can expect to work … as much or as little as you want.

If you choose a bookkeeping service, you’ll get the benefits of working with a whole team of experts from different backgrounds. Access to more people also means more capacity to cover ad-hoc bookkeeping tasks and accounting services as needed. Virtual bookkeepers generate and analyze financial reports to provide insights into the client’s financial performance.