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E-Business Accounting - Should You Do It Yourself Or Hire An Accountant?

How do you like comparing an E-Business with a Brick and Mortar Store? They are worlds apart, you may exclaim, and quite justifiably too. But what I am actually trying to show you is that the general accounting part of it is a common factor and that there is no difference whether it is for e-commerce or a brick and mortar store.

Unlike in a brick and mortar store, if you are engaged in Internet Marketing, there are many areas that need your constant attention to develop and keep changing. After doing the planning and ensuring its implementation, it is simply a matter of how much time you can spare for monotonous book keeping work that could be handled by an accountant or a book keeper just as well or maybe better. If you are only thinking of saving what you have to dish out for hiring an accountant, then take also into consideration how much your business may suffer by being deprived of your sufficient time and energy to concentrate on the more important aspects of constantly developing and improving your e-commerce business.

I have put down in the tabulation below, a summary of what I stated above:

THE PROS & CONS OF DOING IT YOURSELF VS. HIRING AN ACCOUNTANT

DO IT YOURSELF

• Absolutely Free - no financial cost
• You have lots of work and less time to devote for planning and development
• Your knowledge of accounting and taxation may be very limited to do a thorough job of it

HIRE AN ACCOUNTANT

• You may have to pay a thumping amount
• You are free from accounting work and hence have more time for development work
• A professionally qualified College Grad with hands on experience that can do a thorough job

If you are serious about developing and improving your business all the time, then there is a considerable amount of work to be done like making your list of items handled longer by procuring, processing, designing or manufacturing or by developing entirely new items that is best handled by the entrepreneur himself, instead of sinking himself in too much of routine work that could be easily delegated.

There is no point in trying to handle accounting and taxation work unless you have requisite qualifications or appropriate prior experience in those areas. So you are left with two options of either undergoing a course of research and studies with special emphasis on the nature of your business and the prevalent procedures and laws in your State; or settle for the other option of hiring an accountant.

The cost of hiring an accountant could be highly variable depending on many factors such as the nature of your business, volume of transactions and turnover, to what extent relevant preliminary work is done by you and your staff; and the State in which you are located.

If some part of the accounting work like posting your ledger on a monthly basis could be done by you or your existing staff, it would reduce the work load of the hired accountant, so that if he is paid on a piece work or hourly basis, you could certainly cut down on your costs of hiring an accountant.

Personally, I feel that I am quite fortunate in having an accountant who is content to work for a fee that I believe is far less than what he should be demanding. I have 4 full time employees and I personally maintain their times of reporting and exiting from work, their leave particulars, overtime etc. Based on my records, the accountant does the pay roll and issues fortnightly paychecks, besides attending to other returns and tax payments as required by the Feds while also attending to annual tax returns and payments.

I grossed a clean $ 850,000.00 from my e-business last year, and would you believe how much of it went to the accountant? Not even $ 850.00! Of course, I made his lot much easier by putting in some work myself, but he handled the bulk of the work including the most complex work. Perhaps you think I am lucky, but you too could be, if you look around for a good accountant with reasonable rates of charges.

Having had a good look at the pros and cons, the best point to compromise at seems to be to do some part of the work yourself and hire an accountant to handle the bulk and complex part of the accounting work. What is most important is that you have enough time and peace of mind to devote to improving your online marketing business on an on-going basis.

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