Yes, you can do your own bookkeeping, and many owners do for the first year or two. The real question is whether doing it yourself is the best use of your hours, and whether it will stay accurate once the business gets busy.
What does doing your own bookkeeping actually involve?
It means categorizing every transaction, reconciling each bank and credit card account to its statement, and reviewing a Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet each month. None of it is complicated, but it is repetitive and it has to happen on schedule.
Most owners underestimate the reconciliation step. Categorizing is quick; finding why the books are off by $212.40 is where the evenings disappear.
How much time does DIY bookkeeping take?
A simple business with one bank account and a few dozen transactions a month can finish in two to three hours. Add a credit card, payroll, sales tax, or a few hundred transactions and it often grows to six to ten hours a month.
The hidden cost is the backlog. Skip one month and the next takes longer, because you have to remember what each charge was. Most DIY books fall behind in exactly this way.
When should you stop doing your own books?
Stop when the books are regularly more than a month behind, when you cannot say what you earned last month, or when you dread tax time. Another sign is that your time is worth more doing the actual work of the business than matching bank lines.
If you are already behind, hand off the backlog first. A cleanup is usually cheaper than owners expect, and it gives you a clean starting point whether you keep doing it yourself or not.
What does it cost to hand it off?
Evolv Bookkeeping charges $199/month flat for ongoing bookkeeping: accounts reconciled, transactions categorized, and your P&L and Balance Sheet delivered by day 2 of the following month. There are no contracts and you can cancel anytime.
If you are behind, catch-up work is priced at $199 for each month behind, done within 2 days and guaranteed in writing. You can get an instant quote on our homepage.