All roles in one
You own your own business, great! You started in your home and you did everything. Nothing wrong here. You were (and still are) excellent at what you do, so your company grew and continues to grow. One extra person became two, became five etc. These helping hands help you manage to keep your business going. Still good but slipping.
You are now in a position to delegate tasks or roles to certain people because you simply don’t have time to do everything. They are experts in their area and you are glad to have them take that pressure off your shoulders. As you get results from delegating like this, the more you do it because you are confident that it works.
One more role to go
Most companies will stop short of one function in the business being delegated out to someone – the accounting department. The most important role in the long term survival of the business and yet it is kept close to the chest of many, many business owners.
Accounting is a sensitive area that will affect the overall success of the business hence the person handling it must have accounting knowledge and experience to keep accounting records that are reliable, accurate and complete. Most business owners actually do not have the knowledge to perform the accounting role with success in the long term.
Trying to do this role with little or no knowledge and even less time, will lead to problems like recording transactions in the wrong accounts, mixing accounts, failing to detect accounting errors, generating false accounting reports among others, hence the need to let someone with knowledge and expertise keep it under control.
Not giving the accounting role to someone is a common trait in small businesses. This mistake can (and does) lead to businesses failing. Having said you must hire an employee to do this, outsourcing the function is becoming the most economical and most reliable way of keeping accurate accounts.
There are common mistakes in accounting and you can read more about them here.