Part-Time Bookkeeper: What Your MSP Hands Over and Keeps

Use the Model as a Budget Starting Point

The half-time role is an assumption in the example MSP, not a rule that every business in your staff range needs the same capacity. Count your own recurring billing work, supplier bills, transaction processing, reconciliations, and reporting. Include the time needed to investigate exceptions and get answers from colleagues.

The US burden multiplier covers payroll taxes, benefits, and insurance. It excludes paid time off, bonuses, recruiting, training, equipment, and software. Keep those items in the budget and workload plan where they belong, without counting an existing expense again.

The example puts the bookkeeper in general and administrative overhead. It also budgets an operations and office manager, with external accounting in a separate line. Don't turn the bookkeeper's salary into a budget for every administrative job plus the accountant.

If you consider an outside bookkeeping service instead, compare its actual scope and quote with the work you need. The model's in-house employee cost isn't a contractor rate or a promise about available service hours. Ask who handles exceptions and who covers the agreed reporting dates.

Give the Role Work It Can Own

I'd assign record preparation, processing under the agreed controls, reconciliation, and a clear exception list. The owner and the person responsible for the commercial agreement still need to answer decisions about price, scope, credits, and disputed work. A spreadsheet isn't a delegated bank mandate.

Agree how the bookkeeper gets each input. An invoice check can't settle a contract change that the account owner never recorded. Have the responsible person confirm the change in the approved service record before the billing run uses it.

Keep purchasing administration and bookkeeping distinct even when the same colleague helps with both. State who orders equipment, who confirms it arrived, and who can approve the bill. The role description should show the decision route you expect people to follow.

Define the Monthly Pack Before the Hire

Ask the accountant and owner to agree the report format and the accounting process the bookkeeper should follow. Set the delivery dates around the records and review work your business actually needs. Don't choose a close deadline solely because another MSP uses it.

For a proposed monthly pack, I'd ask for the following. These are working requirements to agree with the person and accountant, rather than a claim that every report is final as soon as the month ends.

• Profit and loss report and balance sheet, with the reporting period and any provisional items identified.
• Bank and payment-account reconciliation status, with unresolved differences and a named next owner.
• Outstanding client invoices, showing due dates, disputed items, and recorded follow-up.
• Supplier bills awaiting payment or approval, with their due dates and any unresolved matching question.
• Recurring billing exceptions, including changes awaiting confirmation from the responsible account owner.
• Questions for the owner or accountant that prevent the records or reports being completed.

Read the exception list with the reports. A number awaiting a missing supplier bill needs a different decision from a confirmed increase in spending. Have the bookkeeper label the uncertainty rather than quietly choose an answer just to meet the reporting date.

Use that pack as an input to your cash plan. The bookkeeper can supply recorded balances, due dates, and expected receipts under the agreed process. The owner still needs to approve assumptions about collections, new commitments, and spending decisions.

Keep Approvals and Review Explicit

Don't call the handover finance transformation. Give the bookkeeper the access needed for the agreed tasks and name who approves actions outside them. Use named access and the approved credential process rather than making the owner's login part of the job description.

I'd keep payment approval with an authorized person separate from routine preparation and have a named reviewer inspect reconciliations. Specify how the bookkeeper raises a changed payment instruction or a request that doesn't match the approved record. Don't require them to guess whether a familiar name makes an exception acceptable.

Keep commercial choices with the person authorized to make them. A request to tidy an overdue account isn't permission to forgive the balance. Record any approved credit or write-off through the process agreed with the accountant.

The owner also keeps responsibility for acting on the reports. If a disputed client invoice needs a service decision, assign it to the account owner and agree the next action. Repeatedly returning it to the bookkeeper won't answer the client's concern.

Test the Work With a Relevant Sample

Use a prepared sample rather than live client records for an initial skills discussion. Ask the candidate to explain how they'd trace an invoice discrepancy, document a reconciliation question, and report a missing approval. Give them the process and information they'd actually be expected to use.

Then ask what they'd need from you to complete it. A useful answer should identify the missing record or authorized decision rather than invent one. Review the technical accounting expectations with the accountant so you're testing the role you've defined.

Agree the working schedule and availability directly. Part-time shouldn't mean an invisible person expected to respond whenever somebody remembers an invoice. Name the cover and escalation route for work that arrives outside the agreed hours.

Check Whether the Handover Works

Use the first reporting cycles to inspect the work against the agreed scope. Check what arrived, which exceptions remained open, and why. Missing access or late inputs from the owner need different corrections from a task the bookkeeper hasn't learned.

Give the follow-up a named owner. The bookkeeper corrects the processing or reporting gap within their role. The account owner supplies missing commercial records. The owner resolves approval delays, and the accountant clarifies an accounting treatment when that is their responsibility.

Before posting the job, write the task list and monthly pack beside the work you intend to keep. Cost that arrangement using the model as a starting point and your actual additional commitments. Hire for the records you need maintained, with a review and decision route the person can use.