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These criteria were disregarded for providers where no reviews were found. You should be able to access a dedicated bookkeeper for any questions or advice and one-on-one assistance. A Live Bookkeeper cannot begin cleaning up your past books until they receive the required supporting documentation, which your bookkeeper will request from you after your first meeting. Once your bookkeeper receives all the necessary documentation, they’ll typically complete your cleanup within 30 days. In some cases, your cleanup may take longer depending on timeliness of documentation and the complexity of your books.

Many small businesses choose to use an expense tracker to keep track of their expenses. These make it easier to reimburse employees quickly and see what and where they’re spending. However, if you’re a more established business that requires more potent capabilities, it could be worth your while to choose a tracker that costs a little more.

Virtual Bookkeepers vs Traditional Local Bookkeepers

The Premium plan ($399 a month if billed annually or $499 billed monthly) adds tax advising services, end-of-year tax filing, and financial strategy planning. To enable virtual bookkeeping, the business grants the bookkeeper remote access to its server, software and financial documents. The bookkeeper signs onto the company’s secure network from his home or office computer and retrieve documents just as he would if logged onto an on-site company computer. Bookkeepers around the world might also use cloud-based accounting software such as Quickbooks Online or access a hosted virtual desktop, according to Bookkeepers.com.

• Virtual positions are becoming increasingly common as businesses turn to cloud-based software to meet their needs.
• For some businesses, it may even make sense to choose an all-in-one solution that features expense tracking as part of an accounting software package.
• Danielle Bauter is a writer for the Accounting division of Fit Small Business.
• Merritt Bookkeeping scored the highest of our online bookkeeping providers in the pricing category—at an affordable $190 per month, it is a transparent and fixed rate.
• If you only need periodic help, pay as you go for $49 per month plus $125 per hour for support.

Its significant drawback is that the onboarding service can be tedious with a lot of back and forth—although it ultimately pays off with time and money saved in the long run. Other users expressed a wish for Pilot to handle research and development (R&D) credits and related topics within its feature set. Since the software works best when integrated with QuickBooks and Xero, we took user scores from the app stores of these accounting software platforms. Overall, the consensus of Bench users is that the service is easy to use and that the user interface is very intuitive. The ability to access Bench from anywhere on the go is convenient for remote users—and its tax and consulting services are a bonus. Want to kick off your small-business accounting with a solid accounting software service?

QuickBooks Live

Virtual bookkeeping jobs allow an accountant or bookkeeper to provide accounting services for a client remotely. Virtual positions are becoming increasingly common as businesses turn to cloud-based software to meet their needs. Virtual booking strikes a balance between staffing arrangements and workloads. A virtual bookkeeping arrangement can be beneficial to both the business and the bookkeeper in terms of flexibility and cost.

This feature saves you the time and effort of manually uploading documents. If you’re switching from QuickBooks, we’ll work from your closing balances to do your bookkeeping going forward. If you’re not sure whether your closing virtual bookkeeping balances are accurate, we recommend chatting with one of our Onboarding Specialists about Catch Up bookkeeping. QuickBooks, Xero and other do-it-yourself bookkeeping software give you a tool to do your own bookkeeping and taxes.