Small business owners spend, on average, up to 10 hours each week recording, organising, and processing their financial transactions – everything from accounts receivable and payable, to employee payments, expense receipts and supplier invoices.
While the process may be both time-consuming and tedious, effective bookkeeping is the foundation of sound financial management.
Are you feeling overwhelmed by mountains of paperwork and complex calculations? Here are three bookkeeping basics to ensure a successful financial future for your business.
In order to claim tax deductions and lower your overall tax bill, Consistent and accurate expense tracking is crucial. Plus, analysing expenses may offer crucial insights into your spending patterns and the overall profitability of your business.
For consistent expense tracking, business owners should look at using a mobile app. Options such as Expensify and Receipt Bank replace manual data entry with automated functions, including:
Efficient invoicing is about more than ensuring you are paid on time. An invoice is an official record of the terms of each transaction and must be completed accurately to avoid any errors whilst completing your bookkeeping.
Here are a few tips for professional invoicing:
An efficient backup filing system can be achieved when an online invoicing tool can streamline this aspect of your bookkeeping process.
Every business is required to keep organised and timely financial documentation, as mandated by law. However, manually posting income and expenses to ledgers and journals is very time consuming – not to mention stressful fairly stressful.
Using an all-in-one accounting software solution like Xero , QuickBooks, ClearBooks or KashFlow, will allow you to minimise the time (and stress) spent on your weekly bookkeeping.
There are numerous advantages to online bookkeeping, including:
When it comes to accounting, vigilance is the key to mitigating risk and ensuring the long term profitability of your small business. Therefore be sure to set aside time each day, week, and month to update and review your books to catch any inaccuracies and ensure your finances remain on track.