It is crucial to for business owners to enter all of their transactions into their accounting system. The process of reconciling is important to ensure you have enough cash available to cover costs and are able to fund continued growth. However, business owners often determine their cash balance by checking what the bank shows online in the accounts at a point in time. However, you cannot accurately forecast cash flow unless you match and verify activity in the bank statement to QuickBooks or whichever accounting system you use.
One of the most exciting things a small business owner will do is hire their first employee. Though it make take some time to find the right person, after you're through the interview and references check process, and you're ready to say, "You're hired!", there are a few things you need to plan for on your end. We have some tips to help you get started.
It’s that time of year, rounding out the fall season and sliding into the last few months of the year. We get lost in the day to day work and those unexpected events. Take a moment to take stock in what you and your business have right now and see where you are compared to where you started the year.
When we do catch-up work, sales tax issues are a constant challenge. Many business owners struggle to figure out their sales tax, but we have four steps to make things easier and help keep your sales tax payments accurate.
The last months of the year is a busy time for most businesses. Not just with the approaching holiday season, but preparing for year end as well. To help you get to the finish line, here are some things you can do now to make the end of the year easier.
Our clients often ask us to help prepare their taxes in addition to the small business bookkeeping assistance we provide. Instead, we refer our clients to a CPA firm to provide tax preparation assistance. Why? Let’s look at the primary purpose of a CPA and a bookkeeping firm.
Your business has a focus and chances are it is not bookkeeping. You can try to manage your accounting needs in-house, assign some tasks to an office manager and take others on yourself, but think about a day where you didn’t have to do any accounting work. Your office manager could focus on customer service and you could focus on running and growing your business. In addition to making better use of your time, scalability, cost and expertise are other reasons why outsourcing your accounting operations makes good business sense.
Just as a personal budget can help ensure enough money is saved for retirement, a business budget can help ensure the company can succeed long into the future. Budgets also help start-ups step off on the right foot. Even without historical expenses data, taking the time to forecast income and expenses for the month, quarter and year(s) ahead will help keep your business lean, efficient and open for business.
I’m often asked, “Do I need to keep my receipts for you, my bookkeeper, or are my bank and credit card statements saved through my financial institution enough? If I’m audited, the auditors can surely verify expenses by simply reviewing my QuickBooks or viewing bank records, right?”
If you have a very small company with only a couple of checking or credit card accounts (designated solely for your business) and don’t want to pay for QuickBooks, how can you keep track of your financial records?
