Julia grew up absolutely in love with shoes. From the age of 6, she was drawing sketches of beautiful leather slippers and, in no time at all, she'd begun snatching pieces of material hanging around the house and sewing together footwear of her own creation. At 12, she was the local cobbler's best friend, and at 16, she was his apprentice. It made sense that once she left school, she'd start up her own shoe business with the most gorgeous, hand-made shoes in town.

But she had a problem.

Even though Julia made the most exquisite and comfortable shoes, her business was struggling. Every evening, she'd come home, have dinner with her family and then retreat into the attic to do her books. She was exhausted and just couldn't figure out where she was going wrong. Julia asked her brother, Pedro, to take a look at the numbers since he was good at math, but still she was at a loss.

Julia didn't want to hire an accountant or bookkeeper to help her because she felt she just didn't have the money, but without help or a miracle, she knew she wouldn't be in business much longer. The cost of making new shoes was high and she didn't have a consistent stream of customers or cash. What was she to do?

Julia's story isn't unique. Many small business owners try to take on everything they can in an attempt to limit their spending - and it's often to their own detriment.

After spending all day working in your business, the last thing you feel like doing when you get home is bookkeeping work. And if you're tired after the long day, you're far more likely to make mistakes. But for many small business owners, the idea of hiring a bookkeeper or accountant specifically for this job may seem unnecessary, especially when you're just starting out.

What you might not realise is that the money you think you're saving on not hiring a bookkeeper or accountant may well be less than the money you could be saving - or even making - if you did have a financial professional on board. Not to mention that today, there are also a range of digital tools which can support you.

In a nutshell, you won't know how the business is doing unless income and expenses are properly tallied. Without proper figures, all you have a best guesses, which are not good when it comes to growing your business or making sure you have the money to pay your staff and suppliers.

Leaving this to late night shifts after a long day on the grind is far from ideal and could have far-reaching repercussions for your business.

According to a recent report by Xero, a large number of small businesses are turning to technology for relief from after hours financial admin. Reporting on data from businesses in North America, Europe, Asia, New Zealand, and Australia, Xero found that new startups are often shocked by how much bandwidth it takes to run the financial side of a business.

Some of the most time-consuming tasks include:

Despite all the time and dedication that small business owners dedicate to these tasks, many businesses still struggle with their finances, with roughly 70% experiencing cash flow difficulties.

Without the aid of a bookkeeper or accountant, or helpful accounting software, business owners end up spending hours on work that could've been spent on what they really should be doing in their businesses - or just spending time with family.

As a small business owner, you might not want to spend your money on an accountant or bookkeeper, or on accounting software. However, assigning the books to your brother who's good at math isn't always a good substitute.

According Xero, 65% of failed businesses attribute their closure to financial mismanagement.

Doing your own accounts could actually cost you money. Here's how:

Manually recording these transactions is time-consuming work and there's room for mistakes to happen. Up to 90% of spreadsheets have errors in them according to a 2014 report by Ray Panko of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

If you make mistakes, you could show inaccurate total revenues or incorrect expenses, which will affect your final calculated taxable income and liability. And if you get this wrong, you could end up paying more in taxes than you actually owe - or less than you should be paying.

If you pay less tax than you're meant to, you could be fined or have other penalties imposed on your business. And you may also be asked to complete an audit if your mistakes or omissions look suspicious.

If you've been doing your own books for some time, there could be a lot of errors and missing entries for a new accountant to deal with, which is time-consuming, and, therefore, expensive work.

Once again, this is something an experienced accountant or bookkeeper would be able to point out for you. You don't have time to keep abreast of all the latest regulations and benefits when you're busy running your business.

Why not focus on what you do best and leave your finances in more capable, experienced hands?

The short answer is yes. You might want to consult an accountant or bookkeeper to help you get set up on a new software and show you how to input your data, generate invoices, and so on, but a lot of the software available today is quite intuitive.

Software like Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage is aimed at businesses. This means that it's not very complicated to use and most of the language is clear and accessible to non-accountants.

Moreover, accounting software can reduce the time, effort, and stress associated with the financial aspects of your business. Accounting software helps by:

However, an accountant or bookkeeper will be able to give you added value on top of this software, including ideas around how to fix your cash flow problems, how to generate a better profit, and how to stay within budget.

In the long run, working with an accountant or bookkeeper can save you money and a lot of hassle, while also helping you to grow your business.

While an online accounting system can dramatically cut down on the work associated with financial admin, it can't replace the import advice you could get from an accountant or bookkeeper. Ideally, the two work hand in glove, with the tech complementing your accountant or bookkeeper's expertise by getting rid of menial tasks that they would've done manually in the past.

And when it comes to important strategic advice, accountants and bookkeepers are best placed to help you keep tabs on your business's vitals. In Day 4 of their video and eBook series on Cash Flow, DoughGetters Accounting stress the importance of checking on the vitals of your business before rushing off to the bank, just as you would check on the vitals of a patient before rushing them to the hospital. As they say in their video, you need to ask yourself:

Aside from making sure that you're paying the right amount of tax, and paying what you owe to suppliers or staff, these are some other crucial factors you'll want to consider for your business's success and longevity. Other critical questions you might want to ask yourself include:

This is a lot to take into consideration on top of the daily operational tasks involved in just running your business! Which is why it can be helpful to get a professional on board to help.

Today, instead of spending all their time on tedious tasks like fixing up the accounts, accountants and bookkeepers can turn their attention to interpreting your numbers and providing you with strategic advice. And with the combined help of accounting software and a financial professional, you can grow your business while focusing on what got you into that business in the first place.

While it may seem expensive at first, in the long run, having the right people and technology in place, can help your business not just to keep afloat but to thrive.

With the help of a financial professional and accounting software, Julia could figure out where she was losing money and how she could prevent that from continuing. And she could then focus her attention on making the best shoes for her customers.