If you’re not terrified about the potential devastation that a single, disgruntled bookkeeper with an axe to grind can do to your business, you should be. But what business owner goes and installs heavy duty onsite accounting protections and doesn’t expect to completely offend his or her bookkeeping staff to the point of actually giving them something worth being disgruntled over? Besides, these days it’s much cheaper and much easier for a company to switch over to asmall business accounting service that already comes with all the bells and whistles of a totally secure business environment.
Invariably, the question is always asked: Isn’t it easier for my company to provide reasonable protection against employee fraud than a third party small business accounting service I have zero control over? Each time, the answer to that question is: No. First of all, an outsourced firm has many effective checks and balances in place to trace the transfer of information. Second of all, you can count on that very same third party company to have performed extensive background checks of its employees. Now ask yourself when the last time you did that of your bookkeeping staff was.
Feeling chills just yet? You ought to be. An employee with complete and total access to all of your company’s financial information, coupled with no onsite accounting protections, is like a disaster waiting to happen. Or more accurately, it’s a disaster waiting for the wrong person to come along and set it off.
If the idea of having to hire forensic accountants to come in and put the pieces of a money crime back together while you struggle to keep your business afloat is giving you night terrors, a third party small business accounting service might be able to help you find some peace of mind. At least you’ll know that all of your bases are covered, which is something that few companies can actually say.
