Carlie Fairchild of The Linux Journal writes:

"My company had been struggling with bookkeeping for years. Money was always flowing in, but the accounting of it was rarely ever done with any confidence. We were technical publishers and bookkeeping was just not fun for us, and frankly it didn't help push product out the door short term so it always fell to the bottom of the To-Do list. Of course, looking back on it now we clearly see the key words there were 'short term'.

Instead, our publishing team worked on bookkeeping when necessary. The problem was, 'when necessary' was turning into a full-time job, especially during the past year or two when there was an endless stream of trade shows to attend, subscription promotions to fulfill, and opportunities for brand extension. It seemed like, for one reason or another, we were not able to give bookkeeping the attention we had finally realized it desperately (and we desperately) needed.

We finally begin looking for help.

We called OffAssist and were pleasantly greeted by Candy Beauchamp. While I stressed what a mess we were in the midst of, she confidently told me no job was too big nor could it actually be too messy to fix. I remember the initial exchange in dialogue very well. It went something like (me) 'No, really. I don't think I can begin to explain the mess we're in.' (Candy) 'Seriously Carlie, it will be fine. Let's just work on getting me the files, I'll take a look at the books, and I'll let you know where you're at.' I think I must have followed this with three or four more 'No, really, it's SUCH a mess...'. She was so confident, so calm, and so professional.

Candy had our books in an organized, working order in the matter of days. We were astonished (I wish I was exaggerating here, but really, we were completely amazed to see the books in that good of shape, ever). We now had every report we could want, and they were all accurate. P&Ls, Balance Sheets, Aging Reports, you name it. She encouraged us to regularly review the reports, and walked us through what to watch for and review.

Best of all, we no longer had need to devote our own resources to caring for bookkeeping. We had no worries about late payments, outstanding accounts receivable, financial planning, or even planning for any accounting software upgrades. That's all OffAssist's headache now.

We've been working with OffAssist for just over a year now, and we've been extremely pleased with the service. We can't imagine business life without OffAssist and Candy now, quite honestly.

Outsourcing a key business component such as bookkeeping isn't for every company, but it certainly is worth a serious look for small to mid-sized businesses. As bookkeeping becomes more about technology - bank accounts reconciled over secure Internet, constant upgrades and patches to accounting software to prevent security vulnerabilities, encrypting files to prevent theft of data, applications such as e-mail getting more complex to maintain - these are all things that makes it become more costly to employ your own bookkeeping and technical experts in-house. We've found real peace of mind through letting outside experts take care of the bookkeeping while we get back to doing our real jobs."