Bookkeeping and Accounting Services for Growth Firms | Lighthaus

Growing Business Bookkeeping and Accounting: What Should Be Outsourced?

For a small company, bookkeeping seems like an easy task. A couple of invoices. A business bank account. Some expenses. A profit-and-loss report per month. And perhaps some Excel sheet which the company founder keeps updating when time allows.

However, as a business develops, the numbers become bigger at a rate faster than the growth of its personnel. Additional customers translate into additional invoices. Additional sales channels result in more settlements. Increased staff makes the payroll and regulatory compliance more complex. Larger inventory increases the number of factors that have to be taken into account during procurement, storage, sales and cash flow.

And finally, the question becomes: “Can I do my bookkeeping myself?” vs. “What should I keep doing by myself and what should I outsource?”

For a developing company, outsourcing its bookkeeping and accounting services could be the optimal solution for developing the financial function without building up the internal finance department right away. Outsourcing it all, however, might not necessarily be the answer. The correct way would be to realize what financial tasks need daily assistance, what tasks demand accounting help and which decision-making processes should remain close to the founders or leaders.

This tutorial will explain what should be outsourced by expanding companies, what should be kept in-house, how outsourced bookkeeping works and which accountants to choose for the job.

What is Bookkeeping for an Expanding Business?

Bookkeeping is the procedure of keeping a record of all the financial transactions of a business. These include:

• Recording sales and revenue

• Categorization of expenses incurred by a business

• Accounts Payable Maintenance

• Maintenance of Accounts Receivable

• Bank account reconciliation

• Keeping a record of receipts and payments

• Maintaining financial records

• Invoicing

• Recording Payroll Transactions

• Ledger maintenance

• Provision of necessary information for financial reporting

• Effective bookkeeping helps a business maintain an accurate financial record

This is important as the decisions made during the accounting process depend on the quality of financial data. According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), good business record-keeping allows a business to measure its progress, prepare financial statements, determine sources of income, keep track of deductions and prepare tax returns. However, when it comes to bookkeeping for an expanding business, this is not the end goal.

Bookkeeping vs. Accounting: Differences

While these two terms tend to be used interchangeably, there is a difference between bookkeeping and accounting.

Bookkeeping Bookkeeping mostly entails recording and organizing financial transactions. "WHAT HAPPENED FINANCIALLY?" Some examples of what a bookkeeper can record include:

• Sales

• Purchases

• Expenses

• Payments

• Receipts

• Bank Transactions

• Vendor Invoices

• Customer Invoices

• Payroll Transactions

Accounting This goes one step further from bookkeeping. Interpretation of financial information is done in order to gain insight into the financial situation and performance of the business. "What do these numbers mean?" Accounting can entail things such as:

• Financial Statements

• Profit and Loss Analysis

• Balance Sheet Analysis

• Cash Flow Analysis

• Tax and Compliance Assistance

• Financial Reporting

• Budgeting

• Forecasting

• Management Reporting

• Business Performance Analysis

Both bookkeeping and accounting become increasingly important for a growing business. While bookkeeping lays the foundation for financial information, accounting turns that information into insights. The U.S. Small Business Administration also makes a clear distinction between what tasks can be performed by bookkeepers and the specialized tasks that need to be done by accountants and CPAs. The list of specialized tasks includes accounts receivable, accounts payable, available cash, bank reconciliation and payroll.

Reasons Why Bookkeeping Gets Tougher for Growing Businesses

The concept of business growth appears to be quite simple: More sales = more money. However, in reality, it gets complicated financially.

For instance, let's say a D2C brand starts by selling its products via its official site. Financially, it will have a simple flow of transactions: Customer -> Shopify -> Payment Gateway -> Bank

But now, think about the same D2C brand expanding its business and selling its products via:

• Shopify

• Amazon

• Flipkart

• Nykaa

• Quick-commerce

• Offlines distributors

• Multiple warehouses

• Multiple states

Suddenly, you realize that revenue is not revenue. In fact, you have:

• Platform charges

• Payment gateway charges

• Returns and refunds

• Discounts

• Freight charges

• Marketplace commissions

• Penalties and settlement charges

• Inventory management

• GST considerations

• Payments to vendors

• Transactions via multiple banks

The figure in your sales dashboard may therefore vary significantly from the sum in your bank account. This is probably one of the major reasons why growing businesses require complex bookkeeping.

Functions that a Growing Business Should Outsource

There is no universal outsourcing list. It all depends on the size of your company, transaction volume, industry, organizational complexity, and financial complexity. However, there are many functions that a growing company may consider outsourcing:

1. Daily Bookkeeping Bookkeeping is one of the simplest functions to outsource. Rather than having a founder, operations manager or a member of staff spend hours recording the transactions and updating the books, you may opt for an outsourcing service. It involves:

• Transaction recording

• Classification of revenue and expense

• Updating of ledgers

• Maintenance of accounting documents

• Recording of invoices

• Recording of payments

• Transaction reconciliation

• Maintaining supporting documents Consistency is the key. Bookkeeping cannot be done only when there is some free time. It must follow a process and consistent rhythm.

2. Bank Reconciliation Bank reconciliation is the comparison of the transactions in your accounting books against the transactions shown in your bank statements. This sounds simple, however, disparities may reveal:

• Missing transactions

• Duplicate records

• Misclassification

• Overlooking fee payments

• Timing discrepancies

• Payment mistakes

• Unreconciled payments

• Unexpected deductions For businesses that have a large volume of transactions, doing so manually will become more tedious. Outsourcing the process of bank reconciliation will help business owners see clearly the reality of their cash position.

3. Accounts Payable Another accounting task that might become challenging as your business grows is accounts payable. Rather than manually recording each vendor bill, you can get help from an outsourced accounting firm to handle:

• Vendor bills

• Payment schedules

• Outstanding bills

• Payments records

• Vendor reconciliations

• Expenses classification This is especially helpful in case your business starts dealing with many or even hundreds of vendors. Accounts payable management will also help to avoid payment delays and give a better understanding of future financial needs.

4. Accounts Receivable Accounts receivable deals with amounts owed by customers to the firm. The outsourcing of this process could be useful for:

• Invoicing

• Outstanding accounts receivable

• Collections

• Customer accounts

• Aging schedule

• Collection efforts

• Revenue recognition For those companies that operate on credit sales, managing their accounts receivable could be vital to having good cash flow. After all, profit in the books won’t pay vendors. It’s the cash.

5. Marketplace and Payment Settlement Reconciliation This is especially relevant for e-commerce and D2C companies. Imagine that you see ₹10 lakh in your dashboard gross sales. It does not imply that the ₹10 lakh will get into your bank account. This can include:

• Marketplace commission

• Returns

• Refunds

• Payment gateway fees

• Shipping deduction

• Penalty

• Ad adjustments

• Other platform fees Without the process of reconciliation, such deductions can become invisible in large amounts of transactions. As follows: Gross Sales -> Platform Deductions -> Returns/Refunds -> Fees -> Net Settlement -> Bank Each point must match. Reconciliation of settlements is the area where outsourcing bookkeeping will help e-commerce businesses grow. For instance, Lighthaus places its settlement reconciliation service on matching marketplace and quick-commerce payments to orders and detecting fees, returns, and penalties. The point is not just accounting for the sales. It is to know: “How much money have we made from those sales?”

6. GST and Compliance Support Another issue that might be addressed with the help of specialists is that of compliance. Compliance becomes increasingly difficult when a company grows due to:

• Multiple registrations

• Multiple states

• Multiple transactions

• Sales in marketplace

• Transactions between states

• Changes in structure of the business

• Vendors' paperwork

• Reporting to the tax authorities An accounting partner will help keep all records for compliance purposes. However, companies should understand the responsibilities of both their outsourced provider and their own management regarding compliance. It should be made systematic.

7. Payroll Accounting Once an organization begins to recruit staff, payroll becomes another financial activity. Activities related to payroll accounting include:

• Salaries ledger

• Payroll journal

• Staff expenses

• Payroll liabilities

• Deductions as per law

• Payments reconciliation

• Employees’ expenses The payroll process for a small group of employees might not be difficult to manage internally. However, payroll activities can become more efficient by outsourcing them when dealing with many employees.

8. Monthly Financial Statements A successful company does not need to wait for the end of the year to get a picture of its financial standing. Monthly financial statements could contain such elements as:

• Profit and loss statement

• Balance sheet

• Statement of cash flow

• Revenue statement

• Expenses statement

• Accounts receivable

• Accounts payable

• Gross margin

• Contribution margin

• Financial ratios It’s not just about receiving a monthly spreadsheet. The true value is in having access to correct information in time. A company cannot make an informed decision when the financial data arrives late and after all the decisions were made. This is the case Lighthaus talks about when it comes to accounting of the company: delayed books make the founders decide based on old figures.

9. Management Accounting and Financial Analysis This is where outsourcing accounting becomes even more powerful than just basic bookkeeping. Rather than simply stating: “Revenue increased by 20%,” it should be able to tell you:

• Where did the revenue growth come from?

• Did the margins improve?

• Did marketing spend go up?

• Which products are the most profitable?

• Which products have deteriorating margins?

• How much cash is stuck in the inventory?

• Who are the most economical customers and through which channel?

• Is the return rate increasing?

• Are platform fees impacting the bottom line? In the case of D2C businesses, it can involve profitability analysis on a SKU and channel basis. A company may find that their biggest seller isn’t necessarily the most profitable one. That’s a far more useful thing to know than the revenue itself.

What Should You Outsource?

Outsourcing doesn’t mean that you have to outsource all financial decisions. There are some things that you should keep in-house.

1. Financial Decision Making Your accountants will give you numbers. It is your responsibility to decide on how to use them. Some examples include:

• Are we supposed to increase our prices?

• Are we supposed to introduce new products?

• Are we supposed to go into a new market?

• Are we supposed to hire more people?

• Are we supposed to increase our marketing budget?

• Are we supposed to decrease our inventory levels?

• Are we supposed to shut down a bad channel of business? This is the strategic part of financial decision-making.

2. Business Strategy The accountant knows the numbers. The leaders know the business. The ideal combination is both. Numbers can help make business strategy but cannot replace it.

3. Financial Controls and Approvals Companies must have proper internal controls as well. For instance:

• Which individual can approve a payment?

• Which person can add a vendor?

• Which individual can authorize a refund?

• Which individual can approve an expense?

• Which individual has access to the banking system?

• Which individual can approve payroll?

What Are the Advantages of Outsourcing Bookkeeping Services?

Outsourcing bookkeeping services offers several benefits for companies in the process of expansion.

Decreased Costs Hiring a team of financial staff can prove costly. Some of the people who you will require include:

• Bookkeepers

• Accountants

• Financial managers

• Payroll officers

• Compliance officers

• Analysts Outsourcing can provide a broader skill set without building the same structure within the firm right away.

Availability of Specialized Expertise An outsourced accounting service provider should have expertise in all financial operations. This would especially help the companies who operate in:

• E-commerce

• Marketplaces

• Direct to Customer

• Various payment gateways

• Inventory

• GST

• High-volume transactions

Extra Time for Founders Founders sometimes become inadvertent accountants. First, there is the review of the invoices. Then comes the process of payment reconciliation. Next is vendor follow-up. Finally, spreadsheet corrections. Ultimately, time meant for growth is spent in cleaning up numbers. By outsourcing, the problem is resolved.

Greater Financial Clarity Where outsourced bookkeeping adds most value is not in making things easier, but in increasing the clarity of financial data. This will ensure that the outcome is: Good records → prompt reporting → sound decision-making.

Scalability Your financial functions must scale according to your business. What works at ₹10 lakhs in annual turnover won’t necessarily work at ₹1 crore. And what works at ₹1 crore doesn’t necessarily work at ₹10 crores. Outsourcing accounting can provide a more scalable system in case of high-volume transactions.

How Much Do Outsourced Bookkeeping Services Cost?

There is no universal cost of outsourcing your bookkeeping tasks. Costs depend on:

• Number of transactions

• Number of bank accounts

• Number of entities

• Number of sales channels

• Number of employees

• Inventory management

• Marketplaces to integrate

• Accounting software

• Reporting

• GST registrations

• Financial analysis needs

Basic bookkeeping services can be limited to transaction recording. Advanced outsourced accounting services may cover everything from bookkeeping to financial advisory services. Instead of asking: “How cheap are bookkeeping services?” You should ask: “What financial issues will they solve, and how much will they cost if left unsolved?”

When Should Small Businesses Outsource Bookkeeping?

There's no magic number of revenue at which a company needs to outsource their bookkeeping. The key here is the increasing financial complexity. You can consider outsourcing your bookkeeping if:

1. You are always behind with your books: When last month’s figures are not ready for you, you are working with outdated data.

2. The founder of the business is keeping books: If you spend time on bookkeeping instead of selling, hiring, developing new products or strategizing, it might be time to delegate the task.

3. You use several sales channels: Having several platforms, including marketplaces, the website and offline channels, makes the process of reconciliation more complex.

4. You cannot describe your margins: Knowing your revenue but having no idea about your exact profit by product or sales channel means that your financial reporting is not giving you enough information.

5. Your accountant only visits you at the tax period: While compliance is important, growing companies also need the financial information on an ongoing basis.

6. Your spreadsheets are getting more complicated: Increasing numbers of spreadsheets does not automatically increase financial control.

Finding the Correct Outsourced Bookkeeping Service

Not all bookkeeping providers are designed for the modern business environment. As far as dynamic companies and e-commerce/D2C companies are concerned, bookkeeping has much more to do with understanding the company's sales channels, reconciling payments, keeping accounting up-to-date, and analyzing financial data than simple transaction tracking.

Ask yourself the following questions before selecting a provider:

1. Does the Company Understand Your Sales Channels?
It is important to know that accounting needs depend on the type of your sales channels. While there is one type of accounting needed for a company working in a service business, there is another type of accounting for e-commerce/D2C businesses working in sales channels such as Shopify, Amazon, Flipkart, and quick commerce. Marketplace accounting includes the reconciliation of marketplace settlements and payments from marketplaces with deductions for penalties and fees. For companies operating in several states, there is a need to understand the implications of GST for multiple GST registrations.

2. What is Actually Covered Under the Service?
The term “bookkeeping” can differ considerably depending on who is providing the service. Before committing yourself to the service, find out what exactly it includes:

• Banking

• Accounts payable & receivable

• Revenue & settlement reconciliations

• GST compliance and filing

• TDS processing

• Financial reporting

• Inventory accounting

• Marketplace reconciliations

• Cash flow reporting

• Management reporting

• Financial analysis

• Multi-state accounting and GST In the case of an e-commerce business, for instance, banking might not even do the job. What is really needed is accounting that links together sales, settlements, charges, returns, inventory and GST.

3. What Is the Frequency at Which Your Books Are Updated?
Monthly books will tell you what happened last month but will not inform you of what is going on in your business right now. Ask: “How fast can I get an accurate picture of my financials?” Lighthaus goes beyond the traditional monthly books by closing books daily, posting journals for revenues and expenses, reconciling your bank accounts and updating cash flow information. Business owners are thus able to work with financial data that is more up to date compared to the month-end books. The frequency of the bookkeeping services is critical because the usefulness of the financial information depends on its timeliness.

4. Can It Integrate with the Tools You Already Have?
A modern business usually does not have all of its operations managed from one single accounting tool. Your accountant must be able to connect across the various platforms used for your e-commerce sites, payment processing, inventory management and accounting systems. For example, Lighthaus integrates with various platforms such as Shopify, Amazon, Flipkart, Nykaa, Unicommerce, Razorpay, Tally, and Zoho. The important question is not just “do you use accounting software?”

5. Are There Humans Standing Behind the Technology?
Automation can perform routine accounting tasks. However, the accounting process requires judgment. This company utilizes AI to do the grunt work while its accountants analyze the results and take responsibility for them. Lighthaus implements an automation strategy, which involves automated accounting processes coupled with humans, and not vice versa. Why does it matter? Because it allows you to ask the following question: “Who reviews the numbers if something is suspicious?” The best bookkeeping service will not only notice any discrepancies in the numbers but also analyze the reasons behind them and interpret those numbers for you.

6. What Information Can They Give You Beyond Telling You Your Accounts Are “Complete”?
Bookkeeping should go beyond the completion of ledgers. If you are running a startup, the accounting should give you some answers to the following questions:

• Which products are actually making profits?

• Which sales channels are damaging the bottom line?

• Where are your losses from marketplaces?

• How much money is locked in your inventory?

• Are there any GST credits?

• What is your current cash flow? For instance, Lighthaus offers margin visibility on an SKU and channel basis and reconciles marketplace transactions all the way down to the transaction fee. That is the difference between keeping your accounts in order and having visibility into your finances.

7. Are You Actually Able To Access Your Financial Information?
An advanced accounting tool should provide better accessibility of your financial information, rather than becoming one more barrier to accessing it. For instance, Lighthaus's Spark is a finance AI assistant that enables users to send queries regarding their books via WhatsApp or Slack and to receive responses based on the accounting data, with an option to contact an accountant in case of necessity. And when considering a particular provider, consider: “If I need an answer to my financial query right now, how fast can I get it?” This way, because the essence of accounting is not just storing information about transactions.

AI-Driven Bookkeeping: Is This the Future?

Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the way financial operations can be run. But AI-driven accounting does not have to imply handing all your books to the machine in a thoughtless fashion. A better solution is: Technology takes care of the repetition. Accountants take care of the judgment.

Here are some functions that could be assisted by artificial intelligence:

• Transaction classification

• Data processing

• Reconciliation processes

• Anomaly detection

• Data extraction

• Reporting

• Pattern recognition

• Financial analysis

While human accountants would be freed up for:

• Review

• Exception handling

• Analysis

• Judgment

• Business perspective

• Financial insights All this without making professional oversight superfluous. This is what Lighthaus' solution looks like in practice: Its AI technology performs the repetitive tasks, while its accountants ensure that the outcome is satisfactory.

The Importance of Real-Time Financial Data

Imagine two companies.

Company A It gets its financial statements for June done by July. The owner sees what has happened in July.

Company B Its financial data is updated regularly so that the owner can know what is going on while the decisions are being made.

Which company has a clearer picture of its finances? The second one. The aim is not to turn all accounting procedures into “real time” just because it is technologically possible. The aim is to narrow the difference between: when something happens → when you realize it → when you can do something about it. The narrower the difference, the more valuable the financial information.

Bookkeeping for D2C Growing Brands

There is an inherent need for specialized bookkeeping when it comes to D2C businesses. There could be more than one revenue stream at the same time. For instance: Website sales + marketplace sales + quick commerce + offline sales = Total Business Revenue

However, each revenue stream would have its own:

• Fees

• Payment schedules

• Returns

• Discounts

• Commissions

• Logistics

• Penalties

• Marketing expense

This suggests that just a single P&L statement may not be sufficient. Ideally, there should be clarity on:

1. Revenue per stream How much are Amazon, Shopify, Flipkart, quick commerce and other revenue streams generating?

2. Margin per SKU Which products are actually generating profit?

3. Settlement Leakage Is there any settlement leakage because of fees, returns, and other factors?

4. Efficiency of marketing How efficient is your spending on marketing as compared to revenue generation?

5. Position of inventory How much capital are you holding in inventory?

6. Cash flows When will your business see any inflow or outflow of cash?

These points go well beyond simple bookkeeping. It turns accounting into a system of decision-making.

Bookkeeping for B2B Expanding Businesses

There are a few other unique bookkeeping challenges for B2B businesses. For B2B businesses, which have a different revenue cycle compared to D2C companies, receiving revenue typically comes from several sources and involves: Large invoices, negotiated payment terms, recurring customers and long collection periods.

A business can experience: Complex receivables cycle = Multiple customers + multiple invoices + different payment terms

Also, each customer can be involved with its own:

• Credit terms

• Invoice schedules

• Payment deadlines

• Discounts

• Tax obligations

• Outstanding amounts

• Purchase orders

• Credit notes

• Debit notes

In such situations, just recording invoices and payments will not reflect the overall financial situation. The best scenario would be having the information on:

1. Revenue by Customer Which customers generate the most revenue for your business? Also, how dependent is your business on certain accounts?

2. Accounts Receivable How much money is currently owed? What invoices are current, overdue and close to becoming delinquent?

3. Customer-Level Profitability Revenue will not necessarily give an idea of profitability. One needs to calculate the cost of supporting an account and its margins.

4. Payment Cycles How long does it really take for the customers to pay? Knowing the payment behaviour can be of use in scheduling collections and planning working capital management.

5. Credit Exposure How much credit is extended to each customer? And what is the amount of your money that is invested in your receivables?

6. Cash Flow When does the company expect to get the money? Even a profitable company might experience cash flow problems when receivables stay unpaid for too long.

All these questions go beyond just keeping track of the invoices and payments. For B2B companies, good bookkeeping should give you visibility of your revenues, receivables, profitability, and cash flows.

Typical Bookkeeping Outsourcing Mistakes Made by Businesses

Outsourcing is an effective remedy for your financial woes, but it has to be done correctly.

1. Choosing Providers Solely Based on Pricing: The most inexpensive service provider may not be able to give you enough visibility or competence. Mistakes in your finances can be far more costly than your bookkeeping.

2. Failure to Clarify Scope: “Accounting assistance” can have entirely different meanings. Have all deliverables specified in writing.

3. Treating Accounting as Only a Compliance Function: Compliance is necessary. However, accounting also has to help you analyze your performance.

4. Neglecting the Process of Reconciliation: Entering your transactions without reconciling them will conceal any mistakes.

5. Doing It at the End of the Year: Your financial reporting should be used for decision-making, not just tax planning.

6. Ceding Full Control of Your Finances: Outsourcing should relieve you from administrative burden, not give up management control.

What an Effective Bookkeeping System Should Offer to an Expanding Business?

At the bare minimum, your bookkeeping system should enable you to provide answers to simple queries:

1. How much did we sell? Revenue.

2. How much did we collect? Cash and settlements.

3. How much did we expense? Expenses.

4. How much profit did we earn? Profitability.

5. What products are profitable? Product-level margins.

6. What channels are profitable? Channel-level profitability.

7. How much cash do we have? Cash position.

8. What do we owe to others? Accounts payable.

9. What is owed to us? Accounts receivable and settlement receivables.

10. What is coming our way next? Cash flow and financial forecasting.

If you have to open five Excel sheets and reach out to three different people to find answers to such questions, your accounting process might need some rethinking.

Conclusion: It’s About Financial Transparency

For a growing company, bookkeeping is more than an administrative activity. It is the backbone of financial decision-making. The right outsourced bookkeeper or accountant can help you:

• Maintain your books

• Reconcile transactions

• Monitor your receivables and payables

• Manage your financial records

• Stay organized for compliance

• Understand your cash flow

• Analyze your profitability

• Pinpoint financial discrepancies

• Reduce repetitive accounting activities

• Get access to financial data

However, the main goal is not to just “do your books” for you. It is to ensure that your company understands what its numbers are telling you. For growing Direct-to-consumer and e-commerce companies, that means not only getting your basic P&L statement, but understanding your revenues, settlements, deductions, margins, inventory and profitability by products and channels. That is precisely the approach at Lighthaus - connecting your financial and sales systems, automating accounting processes and providing better transparency to the company's financial performance.

FAQs

1. What is outsourced bookkeeping?
Outsourcing bookkeeping refers to the practice whereby a company engages the services of an external bookkeeping service provider in carrying out some or all bookkeeping activities rather than handling everything internally through an internal bookkeeper. The services may include bookkeeping, bank reconciliations, accounts payable, accounts receivable and financial reporting.

2. Is outsourced bookkeeping suitable for small businesses?
Yes. Small companies may leverage the outsourced bookkeeping services in order to keep their financial affairs in order without immediately engaging a full accounting department. This would depend on the number of transactions, complexity and reporting obligations of the firm.

3. What is the difference between outsourced bookkeeping and outsourced accounting?
While outsourced bookkeeping usually involves activities relating to bookkeeping and maintenance of financial transactions, the outsourced accounting may involve more wide-ranging activities that would include financial reporting, reconciliation, compliance assistance, financial analysis and forecasting among others.

4. How do I know whether my business requires outsourced bookkeeping?
Outsourcing could be considered where books are always late, financial reconciliation takes a lot of time, the owner is handling the bookkeeping, the business has several sales platforms, or lack of transparency regarding profit and cash flows.

5. Is it possible to outsource bookkeeping completely?
Most operational bookkeeping tasks may be outsourced, but there should be proper oversight from the business side and the right approvals. The strategic financial decision-making should stay within the business leaders.