Frequently Asked Questions

Our professional bookkeeping, accounting, and payroll services are available to small businesses owners who need help managing the books. Payroll and accounting are essential parts of any business, and if you’re not expert at these things they can take up a lot of time. In addition, there are significant risks if you make mistakes in your payroll and accounting, so our services are designed to help you keep track of your cash flow, pay your employees, pay bills, and file tax documents correctly.

The main services we offer include: 

• Bookkeeping – we track and monitor financial transactions in your accounting software.
• Payroll – we administer your payroll so employees are classified correctly, get paid on time, and you avoid costly penalties or missed tax filings related to employees.
• W2 and 1099 forms – we will create and send your employees W-2 forms at the beginning of the year, as well as 1099 forms to any appropriate contractors.
• QuickBooks Management – if you use QuickBooks for your small business we’ll help make sure you’re using it correctly and getting maximum benefit from the software.
• Financial reporting – we file all the correct reports and financial documents with the government to avoid costly errors or fines.
• Account reconciliation and general ledger – we keep your accounts in order and provide accurate reports so you can quickly get a sense of your whole financial picture, and verify and post appropriate transactions in your general ledger as needed.
• Data entry – our professional bookkeeping services enter all your financial data so you don’t get behind.

Most small business owners are not accounting, bookkeeping, and payroll specialists, and all of those things can take up a lot of your time and effort if you don’t know what you are doing. Hiring a professional accounting and bookkeeping service like Tolbert Management allows you to focus on the things you need to do to grow your business, while we focus on keeping all your books in order and ensuring your employees are paid on time. We are also experts at things like tax filing and reporting, so you won’t miss important deadlines and be subject to fines or penalties.

We are not tax accountants, but we will provide all the financial and tax reports related to your payroll administration so you will not be subject to fines or penalties for missed deadlines related to that area of your business. For help filing your taxes at the end of each year, you should consult a CPA who specializes in small business taxes.

Not at all. Outsourcing is a safe and effective way to manage your company’s financial health. We can perform all the work remotely and share information over a safe and secure cloud-based software. Because the information is stored in the cloud, you (and any other business owners or managers you authorize) can also access the information as needed. All the information online is protected by top-notch security and encryption so your financial data is safe.

We’ll take care of everything related to payroll for your employees, including:

• Verifying new employees
• Reporting new employees to the IRS
• Classifying workers properly in your payroll system
• Setting up tax withholdings for each employee and updating those as the IRS releases new tax rules and rates
• Classifying exempt workers
• Calculating wages for overtime to ensure legal compliance
• Withholding Social Security, Medicaid, and unemployment insurance
• Paying the employer and employee portion of these taxes on schedule
• Filing all the correct payroll reports with the IRS on time

Paying your employees on your payroll schedule

You could, but for most small businesses, the cost of bringing on a new employee (salary, health insurance, taxes, other benefits, office space, equipment, and more) is far higher than the cost of outsourcing the work to a payroll and bookkeeping service. Plus using a bookkeeping and accounting firm means you get a team of people with a range of expertise in many areas, instead of trying to find and hire someone who has the same variety of expertise.

Unless you are a payroll and bookkeeping expert, there are plenty of risks to a DIY approach, especially if you hire and pay employees. The most common errors are misclassifying employees or missing important tax filings and deadlines, which both come with severe penalties from the IRS, but there are lots of other small errors that you might make without knowing it that can significantly impact your financial future. When you outsource you get an expert who can review your transactions and make sure everything is in order, so the accuracy of your finances is the last thing on your mind while you run and grow your business.

No, hiring an outside bookkeeping firm and payroll administrator just means you have someone who is there to keep your finances in order and complete payroll on time. Any approvals for payments, invoices, or other financial transactions always go through you. Many business owners have regular reviews with our team to discuss financial transactions, review cash flow and other metrics, and ensure that everything is correct. You can also access the system at any time so you can see in real time what is happening with your business finances and be able to plan budgets and forecast accurately.

Absolutely. We work with businesses of all sizes to help administer payroll and bookkeeping services. In fact, for very small businesses it may be even more important to ensure that your finances are in order so you don’t end up with costly fines or penalties from making financial or IRS-related mistakes.