As Steven Covey wrote in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Begin with the end in mind” and this is especially true when it comes to your bookkeeping. The beginning of your business’ income tax return process is based on the financial data and here the phrase “garbage in, garbage out” holds true.
So you might be thinking, “Okay, I’ll hire a bookkeeper. But I want to find the cheapest one out there.” To that I’d say I will likely see you in the near future. Some business owners leave our initial consultation to hire a cheaper bookkeeper, only to return to me to fix those bookkeeper’s mistakes and/or privately teach them how to do it properly the first time.