Signs that your bookkeeper may be setting up a potentially business-life threatening situation:

• Are your financial statements more than two periods behind?
• Is your bookkeeper’s office and work area seldom organized so that no one could determine what the status of the work is?
• Are your bank reconciliations showing a balance different from those on your financial statements or general ledger?
• Do your accounts receivable or accounts payable listings reflect an amount that is different from those on the financial statements?
• Does your bookkeeper refuse to take any time off?
• Does your bookkeeper try to keep others from knowing what they do or how they do it?
• Do your computerized accounting reports consistently contain hand written corrections and notations?
• Do your customers frequently complain about payments not properly posted to their accounts?

If you’ve answered yes to one or more of these questions, you should start to evaluate why.

Worse yet, could your bookkeeper be “helping themselves” to your hard-earned money?

• Has your bookkeeper asked for signing authority on your cheques?
• Does your bookkeeper frequently make telephone transfers from your bank accounts or credit lines?
• Does your bookkeeper frequently take records home to work on or work in the office when no one is around?
• Does your bookkeeper seem to resent or get defensive when your Accountant asks questions?
• Does your bookkeeper have access to your credit card information and receive mail-order packages at work?
• Are your accounting records in a mess?
• Do you receive frequent tax delinquency notices that the bookkeeper explains away as government error?

Although there may be some legitimate reasons why these things are taking place, don’t ignore the symptoms.