Office Manager/Adin or Bookkeeper? We have a position for 40 hours, 10-15 hours of bookkeeping, 10-15 hours of HR, and 10-15 hours of admin

If you're lucky enough to find a financial and administrative all-rounder than definitely go for it! But...they're pretty rare and especially on the bookkeeping front you want to make sure you've got the best possible expertise.

I've been an (interim) CFO (that included doing all the bookkeeping) of a startup for 2 years even though my financial skills aren't superstrong. We managed to make this work by:
- making sure the financial processes were as automated as possible
- our accounting tool was easy to use and linked to our other tools
- having an amazingly skilled and flexible accountant on speeddial. I could literally contact him on Skype chat at any time if I needed help.

This could also be a potential solution for you. If not, I would suggest choosing 2 separate people whereby you should NOT save money on the bookkeeper as it is so incredibly important.

All the best and let me know if I can help you with some more insights!

Getting all these roles in one person is not easy. If it helps we can help with bookeeping on leading online accounting software Xero. This function then gets managed by specialists so your monthly accounts are prepared to "audit" standard. Do give us a call if of interest.

In my experience, someone is either good at bookkeeping or a good admin, but rarely both.

One thing you want to keep in mind is your plans for growth going forward. The way you’ve asked the question, the two roles basically add up to a full time job today. So if either of those roles expands as you grow, this person will quickly become overwhelmed.

My suggestion would be to hire a top notch admin and separately engage a top notch bookkeeper for 15 hours a week who can grow with you as your company grows. The admin position is almost already a full time position, and I bet you will quickly fill that person’s plate if you hire a good one. For the bookkeeping piece, you can engage an individual that does this work on a part time basis for various companies, or a firm like ours that provides this on an outsourced basis. The firm solution is typically a little more expensive, but is more flexible as you grow.

Can your business hire all?
If so why would you want to limit the capabilities of one individual by forcing him/her to represent all at once as needed.
I would recommend hiring a bookkeeper and hire as employee the other. I know of a great bookkeeper if you are interest. She is great. message me :)

My experience suggests you should only internalize functions that require on-site employees. I have used external bookkeeping resources for more than 10 years and been very happy not having that function in-house. Obviously there are caveats depending on what you mean and how you are setup. Sometimes it makes sense to have AR/AP internal and sometimes it doesn't, however in my 10+ startups I have always outsourced it and always been happy with the results.

Office Manager and Admin can also be different things. Virtual Assistants can easily pick up the slack on admin tasks that you would otherwise pay too much to have done in house. Office Manager may have to be onsite, but you really need to consider what you can profitably outsource.

Happy to discuss my experience and make recommendations based on your specifics as there is no one-size-fits-all answer for personnel. There are many variables.