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How to Interview and Hire a Bookkeeper for Your Small or Home Business

Guest post by: Adam Gottlieb

Article Overview: If you are a small or home-based business owner considering handing over your business' bookkeeping duties, whether to an internal employee or an outside contractor, you will need to exercise your full due diligence. After all, chances are that you will be entrusting to this person or service your personal financial information as well as sensitive business and customer data. But how can you find a qualified and trustworthy bookkeeper or bookkeeping service? Many suggest asking the potential bookkeeping job candidate a series of accounting-related questions during the interview to access their competency. But, if you have limited knowledge in accounting then you may have a hard time discerning whether or not the answers you receive are being fudged.

How to Interview and Hire a Bookkeeper for Your Small or Home Business

If you are a small or home-based business owner considering handing over your business' bookkeeping duties, whether to an internal employee or an outside contractor, you will need to exercise your full due diligence. After all, chances are that you will be entrusting to this person or service your personal financial information as well as sensitive business and customer data. But how can you find a qualified and trustworthy bookkeeper or bookkeeping service?

Many suggest asking the potential bookkeeping job candidate a series of accounting-related questions during the interview to access their competency. But, if you have limited knowledge in accounting then you may have a hard time discerning whether or not the answers you receive are being fudged.

Here are a few things you can do to help ensure that you hire the best person or service to handle the bookkeeper duties in your business.

1. Look for a Certified Bookkeeper

In the United States, anyone can be a bookkeeper; there are no official certification or license requirements to perform this role. Nevertheless, bookkeeping certification or license programs do exist and they provide added assurance to business owners that the bookkeeper possesses an adequate level of trust and competency. Both the National Bookkeepers Association (NBA) and the National Association of Certified Public Bookkeepers (NACPB), offer bookkeeper certification programs.

2. Check References

Since trust and accountability factor heavily into business bookkeeping, you should make it a point to contact the references provided by the job candidate or bookkeeping service. You should ask previous employers and clients how long the bookkeeper worked with them, what their impression was, as well as why the employment or business arrangement ended.

3. Ask the Right Interview Questions

The third vital element in your bookkeeping hiring process is the interview. Once you have a potential bookkeeper in mind, you need to interview this person to get a feel not only for the candidate's level of knowledge, experience, and overall competence, but also for the candidate's personality and style.

Here are some possible questions to ask:

1. Which experiences and qualifications make you qualified to fulfill this position?

2. What accounting systems and technology are you familiar with, and how will your records be merged with those currently being used in the business?

3. Have you worked for another business in the same industry or with a similar business structure?

4. How will you conduct the financial reporting?

5. What are your backup procedures in the situation that vital or sensitive business data is lost?

6. Why should we hire you over another candidate?

In short, if you want to hire the right bookkeeper for your small business, then you need to put some effort into the vetting process. Should you hire a good bookkeeper as a result, your time and effort will more than pay for itself.

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Article Tags: Bookkeeper Interview Questions, Hiring a Bookkeeper, Interview a Bookkeeper, Small Business Hiring



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