Are you guilty of letting your paperwork pile up? We know it’s not the most interesting part of becoming a business owner! Read about our bookkeeping services here and let us take care of it for you.
Organised record keeping and up to date bookkeeping is important for the health of your business. By regularly maintaining a simple spreadsheet or using online software, you can get a real-time snap shot of how your business is performing. As your business grows, you will need up to date records to calculate profit margins, monitor your cashflow and keep on top of which customers owe you money – all of these are vital to maximise your growth and in hard times, as we are currently facing, ensure that your business stays solvent.
For many business owners, it makes sense to outsource this responsibility to a trusted accountant as it can be time consuming and quite frankly boring! This frees up your time to do what you do best and provide your products and services to their greatest potential.
Our Tips
The trick is to get yourself organised and stay on top of the paperwork before it piles up too high. This way it doesn’t have to be such an onerous task, taking days at a time and can be completed in bite size chunks. Once you start a good system and make sure you have all the right information, everything else falls into place.
Record Keeping
Examples of the records you are expected to keep, for the current year and 6 previous:
Sales Invoices
Purchase orders/invoices
Receipts
Bank statements
You can choose to keep paper copies or electronic copies as long as they are backed-up and kept safe.
Keeping Organised
Make sure you organise (paper or electronic) using an easy filing system so records are easy to find and refer back to. You might want to keep your invoices in chronological order or you may want to have a separate folder for each customer or supplier.
Where possible, make the purpose of any transfers of money clear to keep your salary, expenses and dividend payments (for Ltd) clearly labelled.
If you’re Self-Employed, we recommend opening a separate bank account to keep your personal finances separate (free business banking here).
Little and Often
It’s a great habit to review your business account once a month. This way you can keep an eye on your balance, ensure you have enough funds to cover your overheads and you may spot an error for further investigation.
Try and set aside a couple of hours a week to organise your sales invoices, receipts and keep on top of bills. The key is to do it little and often to keep on top of it, it can quickly spiral out of control if you ignore it for too long.
Get Help
If all this sounds just too horrible or you simply haven't got the time, you can outsource your entire accounts function to us. Good bookkeeping will save you time and money in the long run and accurate reporting can be vital to your business staying solvent. We can tailor our bookkeeping and management accounts packages to your needs and you can leave us to crunch the numbers so you can run your business and do what you do best.
Using the Right Software
As HMRC rolls out MTD, eligible businesses must use compatible software to keep records.
HMRC has a list of compatible software – examples include Sage, Xero, Quickbooks, FreeAgent and our partners Capium. At Equal Accountancy, we have extensive knowledge of all popular software providers and would be happy to support your business using whichever you prefer. We are delighted to offer our clients free bookkeeping software with our partners Capium.
For businesses that don’t already use accounting software, it can be a scary change and can be daunting to get started at first. It is likely you will incur a one-off set up fee and ongoing costs (if not using our partners) but we cannot stress enough how invaluable accurate record keeping and regular updates through the year can be to your business and tax planning.
We offer a variety of packages to suit your business needs. You are able to completely outsource your accounts function to us and we can look after the entire process for you or you can use our expertise to review your bookkeeping quarterly and produce management reports for your planning. Give us a call today to discuss how we can best support you.
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Equal Accountancy Ltd offers Accountancy and Bookkeeping services in Hemel Hempstead and surrounding areas across Herts, Beds and Bucks. We offer a range of services for Limited Companies, Self-Employed individuals and Landlords including Year End Accounts, Corporation Tax returns, Self-Assessment Tax returns, Payroll services, VAT returns, Bookkeeping and Company Secretarial. Get in touch today for a free, non-obligatory quote for your business needs.
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