A great deal of my background is in accounting and I am very passionate about the work that I do for my clients. It is my belief that business owners need to focus on what they do best, and leave the other work to professionals in their respective fields.

Every business that wishes to succeed financially must have concern for the accuracy of their accounting.. The survival rate of a company is directly correlated to the timeliness and accuracy of how well the company keeps its accounting records.

As a business owner, you have a few options. You can work all day and handle your own accounting at night and on weekends, you can hire a bookkeeper to come in to your office with the understanding that bookkeepers have little expertise in the areas of cost accounting, fixed assets, taxation issues, etc., you can hire a CPA down the street who charges on average $85 per hour for bookkeeping services and around $200 per hour for CPA fees, or you can outsource your accounting to a reliable company.

I am a true believer in outsourcing not only accounting, but many other tasks. Look at it this way — when your car breaks down, you don´t spend hours upon end trying to fix something you know nothing about. You have it towed to the shop where the professionals can do the work.

A couple of days ago I was working at my computer and went to download something and my speakers suddenly stopped working. I, being the stubborn woman that I am, spent FIVE hours (seriously) trying to troubleshoot the problem myself. Finally, I broke down and called the support center and they walked me through a process that took less than twenty minutes!

Why on earth do we torture ourselves when there are reliable resources out there to help us ease the burden? I believe in the area of accounting, generally people are afraid to let go. Perhaps they have been embezzled by a previous bookkeeper or maybe they have gone through many many bookkeepers who have turned their records into garbage.

When you outsource your accounting, in particular, you reap so many valuable benefits. There are no salaries to pay, no payroll taxes or workers´ compensation, no medical insurance, retirement plans, paid vacations, sick leave, no interviews to conduct, no training involved"?¦the benefits are endless.

There are two outsourced accounting firms in the United States that hire employees in the United States only, who from personal experience, I highly recommend. One is OSI Business Services, http://www.outsi.com and the other is Balance Your Books http://www.balanceyourbooks.com. If you will send me an email, I will personally see to it that you receive a quote tailored to your specific business needs.

These two companies are the only ones I have found in the industry who provide each and every client with not only a certified bookkeeper, but also a CPA/Manager. Their rates are extremely competitive and the service is phenomenal. I can guarantee that you will never hire a bookkeeper in-house who will be able to provide the services that these companies do.

There are companies that will insist they need a person in their office to answer the telephones, make coffee, do filing, etc. I will not dispute that it is an important attribute in a company to have someone present instead of an answering service. However, my question to you would be why would you pay accountant rates to someone who answers the telephone, and do you really believe that a receptionist can do the job of an accountant?

Please feel free to send me your questions on outsourcing issues, in particular accounting outsourcing. I will address other outsourced firms in future articles.

"You must be the change you want to see in the world." ~Mahatma Gandhi