How to Find and Hire a Bookkeeper in Hartford County

What should you decide before you look for a bookkeeper?

Decide what the job is. Most owners go looking for "a bookkeeper" when what they need is one of three quite different pieces of work, and the right person, the time involved and the first conversation all change with it.

Open your last bank statement and your bookkeeping file side by side. If they agree up to last month, your books are current. If you can't remember when they last agreed, they probably don't, and that tells you which of the situations below is yours.

Which kind of help fits your situation?

Your books are months behind

Hire for a catch-up first, as its own piece of work with a clear finish line. That means reconciling every account month by month until the books match the bank, sorting the transactions nobody categorized, and chasing the receipts that are still missing. A bookkeeping cleanup and catch-up is a different job from monthly upkeep, and trying to start monthly work on top of a year that doesn't reconcile just carries the errors forward.

Your books are current but they eat your evenings

Hire for monthly upkeep. The work is steady and predictable: bring the transactions in, categorize them, reconcile each bank and card account to its statement, and hand you a short set of reports. IRS Publication 583 tells businesses to reconcile the checking account each month, so monthly is the natural rhythm. If that's you, ask about ongoing bookkeeping support and agree what it includes before work starts.

You have staff, bills and customers on invoice

Hire for the whole set of books. Once you're paying suppliers on terms, sending invoices and running a payroll, someone has to keep payables, receivables and payroll records in step with the bank every month. Many bookkeepers call this full-charge bookkeeping. Ask what they mean by it, so both of you are describing the same job.

Where do you find one?

Ask people who already see your finances or run a business like yours. Another owner in Newington or Manchester who is happy with their bookkeeper is a better lead than any list, because they can tell you what working with that person is actually like.

Then check the software. If your business runs on QuickBooks Online, look for someone who works in it every day, since learning your software on your time is slow for you both. It's fair to ask whether they hold an Intuit or QuickBooks certification. That tells you they know the software. It doesn't tell you they know your kind of business, so ask about that separately.

What should you ask before you hire?

A good first conversation is mostly the bookkeeper asking you questions: how many bank and card accounts, how many transactions a month, whether you have staff, how far behind things are. Someone who quotes a number before asking any of that is guessing. These are the questions worth asking back.

What exactly is included?

Get it in writing: which accounts get reconciled, how often, which reports you receive and when. Agree the fee against that list before work starts, not after the first month.

What will you need from me each month?

Usually statements, receipts, answers to a few questions about transactions, and a heads-up when something unusual happens. The IRS says supporting documents should show the payee, the amount, proof of payment, the date and a business description, so a bookkeeper will ask for receipts that show those things.

How will you get into my accounts?

The answer you want is their own login, set up by you, which you can switch off. Not your password.

What should always stay in your name?

Your bank accounts, your software subscription, your records and your payroll tax accounts. Hiring help doesn't hand over the responsibility, and the IRS is blunt about this for payroll: an employer that outsources payroll is ultimately responsible for depositing and paying federal employment taxes, and is liable for the taxes, penalties and interest if a provider fails to pay.

Two practical steps follow from the same IRS page. Don't change your business's address of record to your provider's address, because IRS correspondence goes to the address of record and you could stop hearing about problems on your own account. And if anyone makes payroll tax deposits for you, register for EFTPS yourself so you can check the payments are actually being made.

Keeping records in your own name matters for the long run too. The IRS general baseline is 3 years, and employment tax records need keeping for at least 4 years after the tax is due or paid, whichever is later. A bookkeeper can leave. Your records can't leave with them.

Does it help to hire someone in Hartford County?

For most of the work, location doesn't matter. Where it does is local paperwork. In Wethersfield, for example, the Assessor asks businesses to declare equipment, furniture, fixtures and computers every year with their cost and acquisition date, and those figures come straight out of well-kept books. Towns across Hartford County run the same yearly declaration under state law, so a bookkeeper who knows it's coming can keep the equipment list current as purchases happen.

Brittany is a bookkeeper based in Wethersfield, working Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM. What any piece of work includes, and its fee, is agreed with her before it begins. If you'd rather write than call, send her a short note about your accounts and how current they are.