Specialised bookkeeping services for electricians
Just as not all electricians have the same skill sets and expertise, bookkeepers vary in their approach to looking after your accounts.
As professional bookkeepers, we work closely with you to understand your business’ unique working style, business processes and challenges. Our in-house experts are familiar with your industry and the changeable nature of jobs. Add to this a mix of suppliers, subcontractors, employees, customers and keeping track of the materials and billable expenses required for each job, and bookkeeping for electricians can become very involved.
The benefits of hiring a professional bookkeeper
As a capable tradie, you are probably used to doing everything yourself! However, there are many laws, regulations and obligations in taking care of financial accounts and statutory reporting that you may not be aware of. Having a professional bookkeeper for electricians on board can help you maintain accurate records and meet your compliance and reporting deadlines.
A proactive and proficient bookkeeper will help you manage and understand your business’ performance and help you make sense of your financial reports.
A professional bookkeeper will work with you to help you meet your business goals and reduce the stress of running a business by taking care of all your day-to-day bookkeeping and accounts management.
Why choose us?
As professional bookkeepers and accountants, On The Money Bookkeeping has earned a reputation for outstanding work quality and exceptional client services. We serve a large number of small to medium businesses in a variety of industries. All team members are Xero-certified experts and are committed to current bookkeeping best practices to improve efficiency and profitability.
Xero is one of the most advanced cloud-based bookkeeping solutions available. Xero integrates with all of the most popular add-ons for tradespeople, allowing seamless data flow between the systems. You will always have access to your profit and loss statements, balance sheets and many other valuable reports to empower you as the business owner to make the best decisions for your business.
Reach out to us for a no-obligation review of your existing bookkeeping system.
FAQs – Bookkeeping For Electricians
+ What is bookkeeping for electricians and what’s different about it?
One of the things that is common to bookkeeping for electricians that’s different to bookkeeping for most other businesses is that electricians have both material and labour costs for a job. Typically, electricians need an app separate from their accounting system that tracks jobs, allowing for quotes, job site information, job contact information, scope of work, timesheets, material costs, before and after photographs, invoicing and more. It is handy if that job management app integrates with the accounting app so that sales invoices sync from the job management app to the accounting system and receipts (payments of invoices) sync from the accounting system to the job management app. This way, income and accounts receivable (amounts owed by customers) are tracked in the accounting system accurately, even though the initial data is coming from elsewhere.
Electricians also often engage apprentices, and this has implications for wages, Single Touch Payroll reporting, workers’ compensation, portable long service leave and payroll tax (if registered). A business is entitled to a number of concessions when engaging apprentices through a Registered Training Organisation (RTO), so correctly structured accounting and payroll settings along with precise bookkeeping will allow the business to maximise the benefits of those concessions.
+ How much does bookkeeping for electricians cost?
Bookkeeping for any business is dependent upon the volume of transactions and the complexity of those transactions. Bookkeeping for electricians is no different.
+ How does bookkeeping for electricians differ from general bookkeeping?
Bookkeeping for electricians is different to general bookkeeping in that client and/or job profitability may be a desired reporting requirement for the business. Given that material and labour costs contribute to producing these metrics, this is usually best handled in the job management system. A correct cost per hour of labour, including on-costs, would need to be allocated to each staff member, which more accurately reflects their true costs inclusive of annual leave, personal leave, portable long service leave, superannuation, workers’ compensation and payroll tax (if relevant). Once this is set up, staff labour costs would need to be updated periodically to reflect changes in wages. Material costs would also need to be added to the job. There are a number of ways of doing this, via integrated supplier catalogues, manually adding costs on the fly by the electrician on the job, or the bookkeeper posting all materials to the job management system after they have been submitted. Ideally, these costs should then sync to the accounting system to avoid double-handling.
Bookkeeping for electricians is like general bookkeeping in that accounting principles still apply, such as assets, liabilities, equity, income, expenses, debits, credits and tax legislation, not to mention awards that guide the treatment of payroll.
Bookkeeping for electricians has more in common with general bookkeeping than it has differences. The bookkeeper needs to understand the reporting requirements of management in order to adjust the bookkeeping process accordingly. This may involve setting various relevant software parameters and also processing data via the correct application and then syncing it.
+ Is it better to outsource bookkeeping for electricians or hire in-house?
The answer to whether or not to outsource bookkeeping for electricians will depend on a number of factors. Once a business is large enough to afford the overhead of a permanent staff member, hiring in-house can be a suitable solution, but it involves someone in the business correctly hiring the appropriate employee and then someone supervising the work of that employee. If it’s an electrician supervising the bookkeeper, then it may be about as effective as a bookkeeper supervising an electrician they’ve hired for a job in their office. If the business is big enough to have an accounting team with multiple staff, then a financial controller with a high level of experience can manage a team of less experienced staff. If a business isn’t in a position of being able to hire someone permanent for any of the reasons listed above, it might be more efficient to outsource bookkeeping for electricians. BAS agents are qualified and registered bookkeepers and also experienced at handling a large variety of different industries and businesses. They’ve seen a lot of different strategies to achieve client reporting objectives, much more so than an employee bookkeeper with the same years of experience. BAS agents bring a wide range of techniques and options to the table that will be an asset to your business, providing ideas and advice you’ll likely find refreshing and useful.
+ What are common bookkeeping mistakes electricians should avoid?
One mistake commonly made in bookkeeping for electricians is not differentiating between cost of sales (job costs) and operating expenses (overheads). When these are mixed together, it’s impossible to work out gross profit, which is income less cost of sales, or your profit before overheads. When doing analysis on the performance of any business, the gross profit margin is important in helping you determine if your business is charging correctly or has control over job costs. Operating expenses, or overheads, are much easier to analyse. Job profitability is usually the detail that’s missing in working out how a business can be more profitable after operating expenses are included.
+ How do bookkeepers help electricians with BAS and GST?
Just as electricians are specialists in fixing electrical problems, bookkeepers are experts in treating financial transactions. Bookkeepers can correctly process transactions, including payments to contractors, who may or may not be registered for GST and who may or may not be entitled to superannuation. They can also help an electrical contracting business produce reports that are meaningful to management whist also ticking compliance boxes, helping the business owner sleep soundly. An electrical bookkeeper will provide reporting, guidance and advice to keep an electrical contracting business in good shape, and also forecast what to expect financially, which includes knowing in advance how much they will likely need to set aside for their BAS.