Excite Tax's answer for Utah owners: IRC §6001 makes you responsible for your records either way, so doing your own books works if they reconcile monthly and match your return.
Yes. The law asks for books, not a bookkeeper: IRS Publication 583 accepts any recordkeeping system that clearly shows income and expenses. Excite Tax's test is simple: if every account matches its statement each month and the year-end totals match the return, doing it yourself is working. If not, see when to stop.
Because the return is built from it. The IRS lists what good records do: monitor the business, prepare financial statements, track deductible expenses, prepare the return and support what it reports. The long answer is below.
Someone has to keep the books before anyone can prepare the return, and a return preparer may generally rely in good faith on what the client provides, without verifying it. So either you keep the books, a bookkeeper does, or your preparer does it at preparer rates. The comparison is below.
An employee costs the wage, a Utah median of $23.77 an hour, plus 6.2% social security and 1.45% Medicare and your time supervising, whether or not there is a full week of work. An outside service is paid for the work done. The numbers are in the comparison.
The return gets filed late or filed wrong. Late costs 5% of the unpaid tax a month, up to 25%. Wrong can cost 20% of the underpayment, and failing to keep adequate books and records counts as negligence. More below.
Your hours. At the Utah median bookkeeping wage of $23.77 an hour, six hours a month is $142.62, or $1,711.44 a year, and an owner's hour is usually worth more than a clerk's. The worked example is below.
Most new businesses can, and many should for the first year: it is the fastest way to learn where the money goes. Nothing in the tax code requires a professional. IRC §6001 requires every person liable for tax to keep the records the IRS prescribes, and Publication 583 accepts any system that clearly shows income and expenses, from a spreadsheet to accounting software.
The same rule cuts the other way. Hiring a bookkeeper does not move the responsibility: under §6001 the records stay the owner's duty, whoever does the typing. So the real question is not who is allowed to keep the books. It is who will keep them right, every month.
Three ways to keep the books; each satisfies Publication 583 if the result clearly shows income and expenses
| Option | Works when | Breaks when |
|---|---|---|
| A spreadsheet, by hand | A handful of transactions a month from one business account | Transactions pile up, or a second account, a card or a loan appears |
| Accounting software, yourself | Bank feeds do the typing and you still review and reconcile every month | Nobody reconciles, so the software's guesses become the books |
| A bookkeeper or a service | Your hour is worth more elsewhere, or payroll and sales tax add deadlines | Nobody sends the documents, answers questions or reads the reports |
Software is a tool, not a bookkeeper. It categorizes what the bank feed sends; it does not know that a deposit was a loan or that a charge was personal. Reviewing and reconciling is still somebody's job, and that job is what a bookkeeper is paid for. For the software choice itself, see bookkeeping software for a small business.
The step-by-step version is in how to do your own bookkeeping, and the monthly routine is in the month-end close checklist.
Yes, and not only for taxes. The IRS says good records help you monitor the progress of your business, prepare financial statements, identify sources of income, keep track of deductible expenses, prepare your tax returns and support the items reported on them.
Nobody needs a bookkeeper. Everyone in business needs books. IRC §6001 applies to every person liable for tax, including a sole proprietor with one client and a side business with no employees; the smallest businesses simply get by with the simplest system.
Usually, yes, because the two jobs are different. The Bureau of Labor Statistics describes bookkeeping clerks as the people who compute, classify and record data to keep complete and accurate financial records. It describes accountants as the people who prepare and examine financial records, compute taxes owed and prepare tax returns.
The return is only as good as the books under it. Treasury's rules for tax professionals say a preparer may generally rely in good faith, without verification, on information the client furnishes, while asking questions when something looks incomplete or inconsistent. Your preparer checks that the numbers make sense; nobody rebuilds a year of transactions unless you pay for it.
And paying for it at the wrong rate is the hidden cost. In Utah, the median wage for accountants and auditors is $38.46 an hour against $23.77 for bookkeeping clerks, so ten hours of sorting receipts done at tax time carries $146.90 more in wages alone, before any markup (BLS OEWS, May 2025).
If you are not sure which side of the line your problem sits on, read bookkeeping vs. accounting.
An in-house bookkeeper is an employee, with everything an employee costs. At the Utah median of $23.77 an hour and 20 hours a week, the cost comes to more than the wage before a single benefit is added.
A part-time in-house bookkeeper at the Utah median wage, 20 hours a week for 52 weeks, before benefits (BLS OEWS, May 2025; IRS Publication 15; IRS Topic 759)
| Cost | Rate | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Wages for 1,040 hours (median wage) | $23.77 an hour | $24,720.80 |
| Employer social security and Medicare | 6.2% + 1.45% = 7.65% | $1,891.14 |
| Federal unemployment tax after the full state credit | 0.6% of the first $7,000 | $42.00 |
| Total: the median wage plus the employer taxes above, before benefits, software, Utah unemployment insurance and paid leave | $26,653.94 |
Outsourced bookkeeping, also called virtual or online bookkeeping, turns that fixed cost into a fee for the work. You lose a person down the hall; you gain someone whose only job is the books, no payroll filings for the role, and no gap when an employee leaves. Excite Tax's own prices will be on pricing, dated, and a wage-by-wage comparison is in how much a bookkeeper costs in Utah.
The BLS uses the term for bookkeepers who maintain an entire organization's books, as opposed to a clerk who handles one piece such as payables. Bookkeepers in that role may also handle payroll, make purchases, prepare invoices and track overdue accounts. A small business hiring its first bookkeeper is usually hiring a full-charge one, whether the title says so or not.
You need a bookkeeper who can get your statements and documents every month; where they sit matters less. Bank statements, card statements and receipts are already digital for most Utah businesses, which is why a remote bookkeeper can keep the same books a local one would. How that works day to day, and what to ask about security, is in how online bookkeeping works.
Doing your own books is free only if your time is free. A worked example, priced at the Utah median bookkeeping wage of $23.77 an hour:
Owner time spent on the books, valued at the Utah median bookkeeping wage (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
| Hours a month | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Three ($23.77 an hour) | $71.31 | $855.72 |
| Six ($23.77 an hour) | $142.62 | $1,711.44 |
| Ten ($23.77 an hour) | $237.70 | $2,852.40 |
That is the floor, not the cost. If an hour of your time bills out at a multiple of $23.77, the real price of six hours of bookkeeping is the work you did not bill. The less visible costs are worse:
The usual mistakes, and how to spot them early, are in common bookkeeping mistakes.
Nothing, until a return is due. Then one of three things happens, and each has a price.
Records also have to outlast the return: the IRS says to keep them 3 years in general and 4 years for employment tax records. Books rebuilt from bank statements years later are possible, but slower and dearer than books kept as you go; see two years behind on bookkeeping and, if the IRS is asking, what records the IRS requires.
Doing it yourself stops paying when the books acquire deadlines of their own or fall behind the bank. Excite Tax's signals for handing them over:
If the books are already a mess, start with fix messy books; if you are choosing someone to take them over, read how to choose a bookkeeper.
Two Utah facts change the arithmetic. First, the benchmark: the state's median bookkeeping wage is $23.77 an hour, and its median for accountants and auditors is $38.46 an hour (BLS OEWS, May 2025), which is the gap you pay when an accountant does the bookkeeping.
Second, the filings. An in-house bookkeeper is a Utah employee, and every Utah employer needs a withholding account applied for through Taxpayer Access Point (TC-69) and files TC-941E returns due April 30, July 31, October 31 and January 31. A business that collects sales tax files quarterly at $50,000 or less of annual sales-tax liability, monthly above that. Whoever keeps the books, those dates are theirs too.
Hand the books over when keeping them costs more hours than the business can spare, or when they stop agreeing with the bank.
Excite Tax keeps these books; the return they feed is reviewed and signed by a licensed CPA at TBD CPA LLC.
Ranked and explained on the sources page.