As a small business owner, DIY bookkeeping is pretty much impossible to avoid. While this approach can build financial literacy and help you understand how your business works, some bookkeeping and accounting tasks require professional guidance — especially for compliance and avoiding costly mistakes. So let’s compare the benefits of doing it yourself versus hiring a bookkeeper or accountant.
DIY bookkeeping for your small business
In the early stages of running a business, everything is on you. You’re staff, management, marketing, accounting, operations, sales — name any component of the business, and you’re in charge of that. This is where literacy is built, and when it comes to finances, every entry into your accounting software from what you’ve done during the day reinforces and builds the foundation.
For instance, profit and loss statements tell you how profitable your business is, but running a business and doing the books will reveal why you’re profitable. The same goes for running your monthly cash flow statement or reviewing your balance sheet. But when your business grows past a certain point, like crossing the GST threshold or hiring its first employee, the books grow in complexity, and you simply won’t have enough time to do it all yourself. This is where it pays to hand some things off.
Running the business vs meeting obligations
Hiring an accredited bookkeeper or accountant is especially important if you lack financial literacy to begin with. ATO penalties for mistakes on your BAS, tax return, super contributions, and more can add up fast. Plus, the right professional can not only help structure and improve your business, but also find clever ways to save it money (e.g. tax savings).
But even if you hand off your finances to professionals, you still need to understand your operational accounting and payroll. This is where owners can pick and choose what to keep, what to understand and review, and what to completely hand over:
Where does this task belong?
Drag each task into DIY, DIY with review, or Hand off — based on how you run things, not a right answer. Each drop shows the reasoning behind that spot.
Running the business
Compliance & obligations
Tip: tap a task to select it, then tap a bucket — or drag it straight in.
DIY
You do it yourself
DIY, with review
You do it, someone checks it
Hand off
Someone else owns it
Where does this task belong?
Tap DIY, Review, or Hand off for each task — there's no right answer, just what suits how you run things.
0 of 10 sorted
Running the business
Compliance & obligations
Whatever you choose as a business owner, focus on handling or reviewing tasks that help run your business more effectively, and outsource the compliance work that doesn’t.
Example: What changes for Marty and what doesn’t
Let’s look at how this works in an example with Marty’s Cafe
For 18 months, Marty ran his cafe’s books himself. He handled almost everything, from payroll and BAS lodgment, but as his business got busier, he couldn’t do it all anymore. So, he hired a part-time bookkeeper.
What moved to the bookkeeper:
- Categorising the day’s transactions
- Reconciling the till against a bank feed
- Running payroll and STP reporting
- Sorting bills and supplier payments
What stayed with Marty:
- Monthly P&L review
- Reviewing GST with bookkeeper
- Cash flow reporting
Marty handed off the tasks that cost him time and taught him nothing. He kept the jobs that keep the business running.
When to hire a professional bookkeeper or accountant
The right time to hire a bookkeeper or accountant depends on the business. A tradie might hand over their BAS and tax return, but do almost everything else themselves. A retailer with staff may outsource payroll to a local bookkeeper once it goes beyond what they can manage, but still do inventory and invoicing. An accountant will tell you to do it sooner rather than later because they want your business.
So treat it like a business decision. If the costs outweigh the benefits, stick with DIY bookkeeping for now. But if getting professional help could save you precious time, money, and resources, it’s worth finding the right person for the job. Done right, you outsource the jobs that make it harder to run a business while staying on top of what helps you make it better.
