Bookkeeping is a term related to the integrated business system management and business development. Bookkeeping mainly deals with processing the purchases, sales, receipts, payments, payroll and maintaining employee salary records and other details, generating the bank reconciliation statement, and providing the reports for both client and accountant. Good bookkeeping habits include the standard process of how to think good for business growth and also ‘How Can We Do Better?' A good bookkeeper will trace down all the ways of business expenditure, like where and how money is spent. Dealing with cash payments and recording all the related entries is also an important task. Which business process is followed while spending money and how should it be done in the right manner is also taken into consideration. Bookkeeping is processed to know how your business is working financially and helps to record the transactions on a daily basis. A good bookkeeper must work honestly and should be independent and confident in doing all the assigned task. Accurate record maintenance and updation along with data entry is a crucial component while filing records, and with the increasing number of businesses in the market, the demand for a good and reliable bookkeeper has been growing steadily in the market. Bookkeeping helps to grow from a small scale business to a big business with more sales and profit. Bookkeeping services must be flexible and are likely to be liable to stay away from the impact of the competitors, and make itself updated with the new advanced technology. Bookkeepers now need to grow and advance their skills to remain firm in the market by providing best consulting services, needed for integration of business systems for increasing clients. The successful bookkeepers must provide the software availability options, like the backup for important data while recording the financial information. Advancement of technology helps companies and employer's to remain focused on revenue and growth. Main benefits of bookkeeping are:
Bookkeeping gives a structural view of the business's growth and keeping records of transactions can help to predict the future profit. A qualified bookkeeper helps to keep track of income and expenses, keeps a watch on paperwork in order and helps you with the accounting-related system. Bookkeeping provides financial statements preparation, which shows for where your business is and where it is going. Financial statements, if updated as per requirements than all entries and adjusting entries posted can be viewed for growth path. A bookkeeping system helps to maintain accurate records of the accounts and transactions made, which include analysing business growth activities, attracting more investors, making timely payment of tax and to meet the client accounting and reporting requirements.
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Managing your books is a cumbersome but critical task for any business. It can be very time-consuming, frustrating, and could mean working late hours. However, it has to be done to know the worth of your business and to satisfy the government for taxes. You also need to do this on a regular basis to get an accurate idea of your financial health.
How do you make this a stress-free task work for you? Some small and medium businesses either employ virtual bookkeepers or do the work themselves. No matter how it is done it is still a mundane task involving shuffling papers and working extra hours. Often there is a twinge of doubt that you are not doing something quite right or are missing important information. Ask any entrepreneur why they went into business and you'll get a hundred different answers. Odds are that "do bookkeeping" was not on the list even though bookkeeping is the core of any successful business. It is the way to measure growth, keep cash flow positive and track expenses. Bookkeeping is like learning to play a musical instrument. The secret is to learn the fundamentals and create a system that works for the company. Here are a few tips that could prove helpful to make the right decision for bookkeeping and accounting needs: Don't mix business and pleasure: Get a business credit card to enable you to separate your business expenses from your personal. By this time you have already started your business checking account. So adding that business credit card will help you establish and build business credit and points. Co-mingling funds between personal and business is not a productive or efficient way of doing business and can prove to be a headache at tax time. Keep it simple: When creating your business in your accounting software don't create too many categories in the chart of accounts. For example, office supplies will be a sufficient category rather than separate categories for paper, letterhead, printer supplies, etc. This complicates profit and loss and adds time to the day-to-day activities when items are being expensed. Automate your invoicing: There are many online invoicing services that allow you to schedule invoices for clients who are charged on a regular basis. You will find that most accounting software has the ability to memorize invoices that reoccur monthly. The day of the re-occurrence can even be set such as the first of the month. Use the right accounting software: There are many accounting software packages out there that you can use to assist you with your accounting and bookkeeping needs. Of course, I highly recommend Quick Books but there is also a wide variety of Open Source software which is free to download. Additionally there are a wide variety of free manuals and tutorials online. Outsource your bookkeeper: Outsourcing your bookkeeper saves time, money, worry, and headaches. Many business owners take two common approaches to tackling the issue of bookkeeping. They try to do it themselves - which is time consuming and can lead to costly mistakes. They pay large firms to do it - which is unnecessarily expensive. A professional bookkeeper has the skills and experience to do the job right. There are many advantages to outsourcing your books. Save money, save time, and the need for extra help. The biggest benefit is your bottom line. • Books that are inaccurate do not reflect the true health of the business • Being clueless at any level about where the money is going is not being in control of your business. Business people need to focus on the business: There are many aspects to running a business and the most important is earning money. Some things just have to be delegated in order to maximize time and productivity. Bookkeeping can be a painful and time consuming process and many business owners do not have the expertise or knowledge to get the job done right. Time spent on bookkeeping activities is time away from making money Who's Watching Your Money?
While I'm a strong advocate of hiring assistants, there are two things that no entrepreneur should ever fully delegate: marketing and bookkeeping. The marketing and the bookkeeping of your business can easily make or break you (just think "new" Coke and Enron). That said, if bookkeeping is not your forte, hire someone to do it - you will save so much in frustration - just be sure to keep your fingers in the books. If you choose to hire a bookkeeper, keep the following in mind: 1. Get QuickBooks. For ease of use, I highly recommend using QuickBooks and hiring a QuickBooks ProAdvisor. QuickBooks ProAdvisors have taken certification exams to insure that they know the system. I have used QuickBooks both for myself and my clients and highly recommend it for its ease of use/understanding. The online version is great in that you can see the latest version of your books at any time and eliminate the annoyance of emailing files back and forth and wondering who has the latest version. 2. They must see both the forest AND the trees. You want your virtual bookkeeper to be detail-oriented AND to see/understand the big picture. They need to know what happens consistently - every month - and update your books without bothering you for items they should know about. At the same time, they needs to be astute enough to see the larger picture and warn you of any impending problems before they happen. If you purchase a piece of equipment, she should know how to properly enter it into your bookkeeping software to avoid problems - and therefore save time and money - with your accountant (and the IRS) later on. 3. They must know your industry. You don't want to have to train your bookkeeper on your industry language, standard industry income or expense categories or other basics. The more up-to-speed they are, the faster they can hit the ground running and the sooner you will have good data. If they don't know your industry however, be sure to give them a rundown of lingo and how you refer to your customers/clients/tenants in order for you to get the most meaningful reports out of the gate. 4. They must provide timely reporting. In hiring your bookkeeper, insure that you put in a provision for when you want to see monthly financials. The date will depend on when your bank month ends - give them a few days after that date to reconcile your accounts and produce reports. At a minimum, you want to see a profit & loss, balance sheet and cash flow statement. Take the time to review the reports so you can spot any irregularities before they blossom into problems. Not sure how to read a cash flow statement? Get a check/electronic funds transfer (eft or "auto debit") transaction detail instead. It will help you see where the cash is going. 5. They must know accounting but also be able to communicate it. Your bookkeeper needs to know the difference between assets, liabilities, income, expenses and equity and be able to provide your accountant with the necessary data upon request. At the same time however, if you are not "numbers oriented", they also need to be able to explain the financial statements to you in plain English. 6. They must be trustworthy. Hiring someone to keep track of your bookkeeping requires a level of trust between you both. You need to feel comfortable that they will keep track of your information and maintain your confidentiality. At the same time, if they pay your bills and have access to your bank accounts, you must also trust that they will not abuse that privilege. And make no mistake, it is a privilege to have someone (particularly in a virtual relationship) trust you with their finances, their checkbook and their business. 7. They must have great communication skills. If your bookkeeper will be communicating with your clients and vendors, they must represent your business as you would. Whether virtual or in-house, it's critical that your bookkeeper be a positive force that further enhances relationships. The question of money can, at times, be a sensitive matter. You need someone who recognizes that and communicates appropriately. Always remember - these are your books and this is your business. While you may hire someone to manage the details of tracking your finances, and should do so if this is not one of your strengths, the ultimate responsibility for oversight is yours. Want your business to delight with smart and simple accounting solutions? QuickBooks facilitates such attributes to its users. It's a robust accounting tool, which let users manage their accounting tasks in a fabulous and efficient way to boost their business performance up to a standard. The offered feature allows users to manage bills, invoices, inventories, sales, expenses, company data and other specific accounting tasks more efficiently. With its simple interface, users can easily introduce changes to this bookkeeping software as per their preferences to make it easier for themselves. Additionally, in reference to QuickBooks support services, users can easily explore hidden QuickBooks attributes to extract extra facilities for proving it as the smartest way to accounting. Let's delve into the details to get the answer.
A few QuickBooks features are as follows
Allow QuickBooks to do your accounting tasks Availability of various inbuilt attributes, QuickBooks can easily carry out accounting tasks in an adept and accurate way. Thus, why not to benefit yourself after transferring your work to this bookkeeping software. QuickBooks' ability to create company's Chart of Account, users can easily store information about their customers, vendors and employees, separately. If you enter your company financial data either in an invoice or in a purchase order form, QuickBooks will automatically generate a transaction form in response. Although, it also allows users to write checks and feed them in its database to enlist a summarized report for easier study. Forms in this bookkeeping software are the replica of paper-based documents, except that they are kept in a virtual format. You can use them for sending invoices, updating and paying bills, running payroll add-on for dispatching checks to employees, filling tax forms and last but not the least for managing inventories. But, it will be more beneficial if you just let the QuickBooks support service provider to handle everything by itself to enjoy the simplicity and ease that QuickBooks award. Arrange QuickBooks interface according to your need QuickBooks' interface is enormously simple to understand. Availability of interactive maps will illustrate the classic workflow so that users can view tasks that are already accomplished. Its icon customization ability will let users find whichever function they are willing to use as per their convenience. However, Navigation Panel of this powerful accounting tool incorporates various shortcuts that users need, to complete their task quickly. Below this panel, an overall layout is present to signify alert, reminder, and account balance options for user's convenience. As a business representative, you must realize, how important it would be to find out best QuickBooks Support services for your business to discover a sharp way to accounting. |
AuthorJim Phillips Archives
June 2017
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