5 Bookkeeper Interview Questions All Business Owners Should Ask

Full-service bookkeeping includes a wide range of services that help businesses effectively manage their financial records. This includes tasks such as data entry, record keeping, expense entry, tax preparation, and more. Your accounting firm’s new client checklist should start by covering basic questions about your client and their business. The responses you get will help you understand what kind of relationship the potential client needs and wants with you.

These types of questions will let you see what type of interpersonal skills your bookkeeping candidate possesses. These bookkeeping questions will test accounting knowledge as well as applied knowledge that has been learned on the job at other bookkeeping positions. Regardless of whether you are interviewing an entry-level candidate or an experienced professional, the interviewing process can be intimidating for your bookkeeper interviewees and stressful for you. By working with a full-service bookkeeper, businesses have access to experts who can help them streamline their financial operations and ensure they meet all relevant tax and legal requirements.

Asking your long term liabilities examples clients about their inventory will remind you to speak of the topic again later with them. Bookkeeping checklists for new clients ensure they understand their payroll needs. A lack of personal interests can indicate that your candidate has a tendency toward being a workaholic. Or, it’s possible that the candidate is just telling you what they think you want to hear. If you get the impression that the candidate truly has no outside interests, though, you might be interviewing someone who will work themselves to the point of burnout and resentment. This last question gauges the candidate’s fit with your existing company culture.

What are your weaknesses as a bookkeeper?

If you are hiring in-house then the questions you ask will be similar to what you would ask any other in-house candidate. Previous experiences, ability to work late or on weekends when needed and things of that nature. With most online accounting and payroll software there are settings so they can do what they need to do without seeing things they do not need to see. You will also want to be clear on the level of confidentiality you expect and understand what security practices they follow.

Recall a time you worked with your team to complete a complex project under a deadline. This will also show that you care about their happiness and satisfaction and that you intend to deliver top-notch service. Learning what challenge is the most troubling for them can help you brainstorm actionable ways to work towards a solution through your role as an accountant.

A Bookkeeper Comes with Specific Sets of Knowledge and Skill

As I said earlier, your bookkeeper may know the financial aspects of your business better than you do. They may even have a great idea for a new sales avenue that you haven’t considered. SkillScouter aims to provide high quality and well-researched reviews, comparisons, and guides for those looking to start online courses or eLearning.

Their eyes may notice the sales trend which might get overlooked by the business management.

General Work Experience

This may seem like a strange question to ask right off the bat, and chances are it will throw some of your interview candidates off-guard. We believe everyone should be able to make financial decisions with confidence. Few people realize that a good accountant can help them manage debt as well. If your potential client has debt, let them know you can help them negotiate with creditors and develop a plan to reduce it. This question can be a great ice-breaker that leads to a more informal discussion of their goals, ideals, and challenges.

Do you have a good sense of the potential hire’s level of empathy, tact and diplomacy, for example? Even if you’ve conducted a remote interview, you should have an impression of their personality and their ability to express themselves. This bookkeeper interview question is an important one to ask, since bookkeeping tasks can vary by industry.

Can you name a few strengths your previous firm has?

To close more client deals, ask about wage or benefits problems in your lead nurturing and onboarding questionnaire. Examples might include union negotiations, labor disputes, etc., the potential for a minimum wage increase. Appealing to a wide range of clients is essential to establishing yourself in the industry. That’s great news because you will be able to demonstrate your expertise in accounting and financial advising. This information may be different than what you see when you visit a financial institution, service provider or specific product’s site.

• Maybe they created helpful visual data presentations to help them understand their portfolio value or financial reports.
• This may seem like a strange question to ask right off the bat, and chances are it will throw some of your interview candidates off-guard.
• You can easily fetch daily, monthly, quarterly or yearly information from the book-keeping.

If you follow the system I’m sharing about today, it will help you communicate effectively with your potential client so you can see if you’d be a good fit to do their bookkeeping for them. A generalist can handle the day-to-day workload but a whizzy can handle more challenging and consequential aspects of your business bookkeeping. Identify your unique bookkeeping requirements first so that you don’t end up dissatisfied at the end of the month. Engaging a bookkeeping agency will empower your company to manage routine bookkeeping work without investing in accounting staff and office resources.

The solution they describe will tell you something about their thought process, problem solving skills, customer service orientation and ability to think on their feet. Accounting interview questions like this one can help bring to light how the applicant has approached a routine process with previous employers. For recent grads, this line of inquiry allows them to apply theoretical knowledge in venturing educated guesses, which could open a dialogue about how your company handles this issue. Job candidates with some accounting training or experience should have no trouble with their answer. As with the question above, how applicants reply will show whether they’re ready for an entry-level job at your company. Most business owners won’t have particular preferences about these categories, as I’ve found that much of the time they just don’t want to deal with their bookkeeping at all.

• If you run a small business, it can be difficult to find a good bookkeeper when you have an open position.
• You may be talking too much rather than listening to your prospective client.
• You can see starting salaries and the trends shaping the finance and accounting sector’s hiring market in the latest Robert Half Salary Guide.
• All of the above questions can be answered with the functions of a book-keeper.
• Investing the time to find the right bookkeeper can pay dividends down the road.

If your bookkeeper is handling the books properly, they are seeing every single transaction that happens in your business. After a while, your bookkeeper should be able to sense where money is coming from and going to. If your bookkeeper can’t instantly tell you where you can save money, you have a problem.

When the answer comes affirmative, ask about the technologies they have worked with. Since bookkeeping practices are different in some industries, it is possible that a bookkeeper who has the proficiency to work well in one industry might fail to work in your industry. First, unless they are lying, I will find out whether they are enjoying their job or not. I will also find out if they are challenged and what they like and dislike about their job.

And the financial health must be comparable to a time period with a time period – on monthly, quarterly or annual period. You can easily fetch daily, monthly, quarterly or yearly information from the book-keeping. You should always consult your book-keeper before making any business decision/s; ask your book-keeper about the different ways to make a single business decision.