Bookkeeping Services

As your bookkeepers, we offer various packages or services — we’ll work with you to understand and determine how we can help manage various aspects of your business’s finances. 

Some of our online bookkeeping services in Chicago businesses include setting up and implementing our Quickbooks pro advisor service (either Quickbooks Online or Quickbooks Desktop), handling things like bank reconciliation, fixed asset and depreciation management, vendor invoice processing and bill pay, audits and financial statement assurance, and associated data entry along with enabling more significant tasks like business valuations.

In addition, we can handle payroll processing, tax preparation, and other small business advisory services and small business consulting. 

Bookkeeping and Payroll Services in Chicago

All of these tasks fall into the skillset of a bookkeeper or CPA — and what’s more, these are often jobs best left to the certified accounting professionals.

And every city, state, and county has slightly different laws and regulations.

Accordingly, if your business is based in Chicago or the surrounding area, you can rest assured that we understand the local laws and regulations and other unique details of doing business in Illinois. 

Outsourcing your Chicago small business’s bookkeeping needs to a team of professional CPAs who are familiar with the local business climate is beneficial for many reasons.

First, it is more cost-effective than hiring in-house for most small business owners, since your needs may not be enough to justify a full-time bookkeeper or accountant — but managing the books is likely still more work than you want to take on yourself!

After all, your time is valuable and better spent focusing on core business initiatives, and strategic growth planning, and actually doing the work that’s made your business successful. 

By leaving the monthly bookkeeping to TAXFLO, you’ll gain financial clarity and cut down on stress, knowing that we’re keeping detailed records of your company’s activities, providing key insights into your business’s financial health, and handling the more complex financial tasks associated with running your organization. 

Perhaps more importantly, outsourcing your business accounting and tax services to a professional Chicago-based bookkeeper gets you access to a high level of expertise and experience, meaning that you can sleep soundly knowing that your company’s books are organized, accurate, and compliant with all relevant local, Illinois state, and federal regulations.

Our bookkeeping and small to medium sized businesses financial consulting services can scale with your company’s growth and changing needs, and even help you foster that growth with long term strategic planning and budgeting. 

Assuring compliance is another essential aspect of our accurate bookkeeping activities.

Timely and accurate tax preparation and filing helps keep your business in good standing and ensures you avoid any unnecessary tax penalties or fees.

We can also help you prepare for audits and handle any other regulatory or IRS issues if they happen to arise. 

Bookkeeping Services in Chicago — Financial Statements & Bank Reconciliations 

Hiring a bookkeeper or engaging with a bookkeeping service is only logical once your business reaches a certain point.

In many cases, while you may not need a bookkeeper physically at your office or on site with you and your team, engaging a local bookkeeper can be invaluable because they understand the ins and outs of your local regulations and tax codes, and other idiosyncrasies that may be unique to Chicago or your city, region, or state. 

One of the key aspects of running a business that a bookkeeping service can help with is providing monthly or weekly bank reconciliations.

This helps you see where and how your business’s funds were spent every month via comprehensive cash reports; we can also manage your bank accounts and reconciliations and track the money coming in and the money going out  and reporting back to you every step of the way.

Bank reconciliation can be a time-consuming task, especially for business owners with many other responsibilities.

Hiring a bookkeeper to reconcile accounts allows you to focus on the actual activities that make your business money while still keeping accurate financial records. 

We’re intimately familiar with accounting solutions & principles and how to best reconcile bank statements. We can identify discrepancies and errors and make sure your business’s financial records are accurate, reliable, and current.

This record-keeping is critical in regard to maintaining the accuracy of your company’s financial records; mistakes in bank reconciliation can lead to errors in financial reporting and therefore decision-making. 

Furthermore, accurate timely financial statements are absolutely necessary for compliance with Illinois state and federal tax laws and regulations.

As your bookkeepers, we help ensure that your business’s financial records are compliant with relevant Chicago, state, and federal regulations and that all required documentation is properly kept up to date. 

The information gathered during bank reconciliation also enables our bookkeeping team to provide valuable insights into the financial health of your business.

These learnings help you make informed business decisions and identify areas for improvement and growth. 

Overall, hiring a bookkeeper or CPA to handle bank reconciliation can save time, improve accuracy, ensure compliance, and provide valuable financial insights for you, the business owner.

Monthly Accounting and Tax Services in Chicago

Of course, bank reconciliation is only one part of managing your business finances.

Keeping up with the flow of money coming in versus payments to employees, landlords, and other remote accounting services  — and reconciling all accounts on a monthly basis — can be quite a significant task.

In fact, if you’re busy running a business you likely don’t have the time or attention to handle this work properly. 

We provide the monthly financial statements, updates, and advice you need to run your business efficiently.

Our bookkeeping offerings encompass monthly statements, updated balance sheets, cash flow statements, customized reports, and much more, including budgeting and forecasting services. 

As your bookkeeping professionals, we help you develop a comprehensive budget and financial forecast, and then build them into your accounting system so that you can better track your business finances, minimize financial risks, and avoid surprises.

We have specialized expertise in tax preparation, financial analysis, and access to accounting software programs that you likely do not have in-house (and bringing that expertise in-house may be cost-prohibitive or simply unnecessary.

That’s because outsourcing your needs to a local bookkeeping service is also a more scalable solution than hiring a full-time bookkeeper for your small business. If, like most small or mid sized businesses, your accounting needs or workload fluctuate throughout the year, it is more cost-effective to level up your help during peak periods or busy times and then level down as needed. 

Hiring a bookkeeper to handle your monthly accounting and bookkeeping activities also results in access to more advanced tools and technologies that may require costly one-off licenses or subscriptions that you may not have the time or inclination to make full use of in-house.

As your bookkeepers, we use these tools to streamline processes and improve efficiency, enabling us to deliver higher-quality accounting services and more advanced financial insights to clients like you more quickly and accurately.

Managing risk is also a key reason to engage a bookkeeper for monthly accounting services.

After all, there’s plenty of risk in doing business in Chicago without adding to the list of financial challenges by keeping poor, incomplete, or inaccurate records. 

Accordingly, outsourcing certain accounting and bookkeeping tasks can help you mitigate the risk of errors or omissions in financial reporting.

We have quality control measures in place to ensure accuracy and compliance with accounting standards. 

Let us help you manage your company’s financial workload more effectively — you’ll be amazed how much more positive productivity you’ll gain (and stress you’ll lose) by signing on for monthly accounting and bookkeeping resources.

Bookkeepers in Chicago — Data Entry

While data entry might seem simple or even mundane on the surface, there are multiple reasons why hiring a professional bookkeeper to perform your data entry is in your best interest as a Chicago business owner.

Perhaps the primary reason to hire a bookkeeper for data entry is accuracy.

Professional bookkeepers are trained to accurately input financial analysis data into accounting software like Quickbooks or even Excel spreadsheets.

Your financial records need to be precise, since this reduces the risk of errors that could lead to future discrepancies or costly compliance issues. 

A high level of accuracy is critical when generating financial reports to glean insights into your business’s financial health.

After all, your financial reports are only as reliable as the data they are based on, so accurate data entry is crucial for helping business owners like yourself make informed decisions about the future of your company. 

Moreover, in the event of an audit, accurate financial records are essential and can help ensure the audit process is as painless and smooth as possible, reducing stress and the risk of penalties or fines.

Speaking of precision, as your bookkeeping team, we have in-depth knowledge of accounting principles and practices.

We understand how to organize and categorize financial transactions properly, ensuring that records are maintained in compliance with accounting standards and Illinois state and federal regulations. 

Hiring a bookkeeping service for data entry is also more efficient.

We use specialized accounting software and tools to streamline the data entry process, enabling us to quickly and accurately input large volumes of financial transactions, which saves time and effort while ensuring your business’s records are always kept up to date. 

Overall, hiring a bookkeeping firm  to handle your data entry allows business owners like yourself to save time when maintaining accurate financial records.

Leverage our expertise to improve your bookkeeping efficiency, generate reports, and prepare for audits effectively.

Local Bookkeeping Services — Fixed Asset and Depreciation Management

Outsourcing your bookkeeping tasks that require specialized expertise is a smart choice, especially activities like fixed asset and depreciation management that require complex calculations and specialized knowledge of accounting principles and tax regulations in Chicago, Illinois (or wherever you are doing business). 

As local CPAs, we understand how to properly account for fixed assets and calculate depreciation expenses accurately.

This ensures that your business’s financial records are in compliance with relevant rules and regulations, reducing the risk of penalties or fines. 

Accuracy in maintaining financial records, including fixed asset registers and depreciation schedules, is another reason to engage professional bookkeeping services.

As your bookkeepers, we can ensure that all fixed asset transactions are properly recorded and depreciation expenses are calculated correctly, reducing the risk of errors in financial reporting. 

This type of attention to detail is also invaluable for financial reporting.

Accurate fixed asset and depreciation records are necessary for developing financial reports that offer insights into your business’s financial performance and overall health.

We work to ensure that financial reports accurately reflect the value of fixed assets and the corresponding depreciation expenses.

Proper fixed asset financial management allows business owners like yourself to track the value and usage of your assets over time.

We can help implement systems and processes for tracking fixed assets, ensuring that you have a clear understanding of your business’s asset base and can make informed decisions about asset acquisitions, disposals, maintenance, and more.

Managing fixed assets and calculating depreciation can be time-consuming tasks, especially for business owners who have many other responsibilities.

Hiring a bookkeeper allows you to focus on core business activities while ensuring that fixed asset records are accurately maintained.

Overall, hiring TAXFLO as your bookkeeping consultancy for fixed asset and depreciation management ensures compliance with local, state, and federal regulations, saves you time, improves the accuracy of your record-keeping, facilitates enhanced financial reporting, and empowers you with more effective asset tracking and financial management.

Bookkeeping in Chicago — Quickbooks Setup and Implementation (Online or Desktop) 

Quickbooks and other accounting software is invaluable for business owners and accountants alike, but it can be costly especially for startups and small businesses.

However, by outsourcing your bookkeeping, you can gain access to this technology without needing to shell out for expensive licenses yourself. 

Keeping paper records is messy and overly complex at best, and causes you to miss key transactions or payments (resulting in late fees, penalties, audits, or other damages) at worst.

If moving everything to Quickbooks seems expensive or daunting, hiring a professional bookkeeper to take care of the implementation and setup is perhaps the best investment you can make. 

As a small business owner, you might choose to outsource QuickBooks setup and implementation to take advantage of our deep level of expertise, save yourself and your staff time, ensure that your software is customized to your needs, and more.

After all, QuickBooks setup and implementation require a thorough understanding of accounting principles and familiarity with the software — both the Online and Desktop versions.

Outsourcing to professionals like us who specialize in deploying and maintaining a QuickBooks set up ensures that the implementation is done correctly the first time, minimizing errors and maximizing efficiency.

Unsurprisingly, setting up QuickBooks can be time-consuming, especially if you are not familiar with the software.

Engaging professionals for this task allows you to focus on core business activities while we handle the technical aspects of setting up and configuring QuickBooks.

We will customize your QuickBook implementation to fit your unique business workflows so it meets your accounting and reporting needs most effectively.

As your QuickBook provider, we can make sure your Intuit QuickBooks implementation is set up and configured correctly for accurate financial reporting.

This reduces the risk of errors and ensures that your business’s financial records are accurate and reliable.

We also realize that as your business grows and evolves, your accounting needs may change.

We can help your business adapt and scale your accounting systems to accommodate growth, ensuring that your Online or Desktop Quickbooks software configuration continues to meet your company’s needs over time.

At the end of the day, outsourcing QuickBooks setup and implementation allows business owners to benefit from the expertise of professionals, save time, customize the software to fit their needs, receive training and support, ensure accuracy in financial reporting, and adapt to changes as the business grows.

Small Business Bookkeeper —  Vendor Invoice Processing and Bill Pay 

There are many reasons why a small business owner may choose outsourced bookkeeping & vendor invoice processing and bill payment to a professional bookkeeper.

For instance, managing vendor invoices and the corresponding bill payments is time-consuming and requires a lot of oversight and administrative details, especially if you have a lot of different vendors and accounts to deal with. 

Our collective CPA experience and specific capabilities with managing vendor invoices and bill payments will ensure that your company’s invoices are processed accurately, payments are made on time, and proper records are maintained, reducing the risk of errors and late fees. 

We leverage accounting software like QuickBooks to streamline the invoice processing and bill payment process, which reduces the risk of manual data entry errors, ensures that vendor invoices are processed and bills are paid in a timely manner, and improves overall efficiency. 

Maintaining a healthy cash flow and positive vendor and supplier relationships requires the effective management of vendor invoices and the associated bill payments.

Our personalized services help you and your staff with expense tracking, monitor cash flow, and ensure that bills are paid on time to avoid late fees and maintain positive relationships with vendors. 

Like employees and contractors, perhaps nothing is more important to vendors than being paid on-time and in full, with proper record-keeping and communication throughout the process.

Working with professional bookkeepers makes managing those healthy relationships a priority and takes some of the workload off your hands. 

Properly managing vendor invoices and bill payments is essential for compliance with Illinois state and federal tax laws and regulations.

We ensure that invoices are coded correctly, expenses are properly categorized, and all necessary documentation is maintained for tax purposes.

Compliance is key for vendor invoice processing and bill payment (as well as all other aspects of maintaining your company’s finances). 

By outsourcing vendor invoice processing and bill payment, you can gain valuable insights into your company’s financial performance.

As your bookkeepers, we provide reports and analysis that help business owners make informed decisions and identify opportunities for cost savings and efficiency improvements.

Overall, outsourcing vendor invoice processing and bill payment to a bookkeeping company can save you time and enable you to leverage my extensive expertise.

This will improve efficiency, support cash flow management, ensure compliance, and provide valuable long-term financial insights.

Booking for Small Businesses  —  Audits and Financial Statement Assurance

Almost no one wants to be audited, however, most Chicago business owners do not manage to avoid audits forever.

And what’s more, by working with experienced bookkeepers and CPAs, you do not need to fear the threat of an audit  — at worst, it’ll be mildly inconvenient.

A bookkeeper’s role in audits and financial statement assurance primarily revolves around providing accurate and reliable financial records and supporting documentation to auditors.

As your bookkeeper, we may not directly conduct audits, but  responsibilities play a crucial role in facilitating the audit process and minimizing your stress throughout. 

After all, bookkeepers are responsible for accurately recording financial transactions in the company’s QuickBooks setup or other accounting system.

These transactions include items like sales, purchases, expenses, and payments.

These records serve as the foundation for financial statements and are essential for audit purposes.

We also reconcile bank statements, credit card statements, and other financial accounts to ensure that transactions recorded in the accounting system match the transactions reported by financial institutions. Reconciled accounts provide assurance to auditors that the financial records are accurate and complete.

In addition, we prepare financial statements based on your company’s financial records, including the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement.

These statements provide a snapshot of the company’s financial position and performance and are required for audit purposes.

As your bookkeepers, we ensure that your business’s financial records comply with accounting standards, regulatory requirements, and company policies.

Compliance with accounting standards and regulations is essential for audit purposes and provides assurance to you and any other stakeholders that your company’s financial statements are accurate and reliable.

We maintain supporting documentation, such as invoices, receipts, accounts receivable, contracts, and bank statements, to substantiate the transactions recorded in the financial records.

Auditors rely on this documentation to verify the accuracy and legitimacy of financial transactions.

In the case of an audit, we work with auditors by providing access to financial records, answering inquiries, and assisting with requests for additional information or documentation. 

What’s more, we play a key supportive role in facilitating the audit and ensuring that auditors have access to the information they need and that you are reassured throughout the process.

As your bookkeeping service, we’ll make sure you do not go through an audit or investigation unsupported or alone.

We help establish and maintain internal controls to safeguard assets, prevent fraud, and ensure the accuracy of financial reporting.

Strong internal controls provide assurance to auditors that the financial statements are reliable and free from material misstatement, and that starts with hiring an experienced professional bookkeeper.

Bookkeeping Chicago — Business Valuations 

Business valuation is a complex process that involves analyzing various financial, market, and operational factors to determine the worth of a business.

While we may not directly perform the business valuations, we do contribute to the business valuation process by providing accurate and comprehensive financial records and data and assisting valuation experts every step of the way.

One way that we assist during the valuation process for your Chicago small business is by keeping and sharing detailed financial records. 

As your bookkeepers, we are responsible for maintaining accurate and up-to-date financial records, including balance sheets, income statements, cash flow statements, and other financial documents. These records provide essential financial data that is used in the valuation process. 

We also maintain records of your business’s assets, including property, equipment, inventory, and intangible assets.

These asset records are necessary for assessing the business’s tangible and intangible value components.

What’s more, we can calculate financial ratios, such as profitability ratios, liquidity ratios, and solvency ratios, based on the financial data we maintain.

These ratios provide insights into the financial health and performance of your business, which are essential inputs for the valuation analysis.

Tracking your business’s revenue and expenses over time provides insights into the historical financial performance.

This data helps valuation professionals understand the business’s revenue-generating capabilities, cost structure, and profitability trends. 

Cash flow statements that track the inflow and outflow of cash in your business are also needed for a business valuation.

Cash flow analysis is essential for assessing the business’s ability to generate cash and meet its financial obligations, which impacts its valuation.

We maintain records of your business’s liabilities, such as loans, accounts payable, and other obligations.

These records are essential to the business valuation process because understanding the business’s debt obligations is crucial for determining its net worth and valuation.

While as your bookkeeper, we may not directly perform the business valuation analysis, we play a crucial role in providing accurate financial data and documentation that valuation professionals rely on. 

By maintaining accurate records and providing relevant financial information, bookkeepers like myself contribute to the overall valuation process and help ensure that the valuation analysis is based on reliable data.

Your New Chicago Bookkeeping Team

Our Chicago IL bookkeeping firm can help manage your day-to-day accounting, streamline your business’s overall accounting processes, and more.