What is bookkeeping?
Bookkeeping is the process of loading invoices and receipts into your accounting system, making payments and reconciling money received. This is actually a very simple process, but because it deals with primarily with company and other peoples money it usually falls on the owners of the business; taking away valuable time. This often means the bookkeeping is done at 11pm the night before a “board” meeting, which usually leaves little time for analysing what went on in your business. We think you should be able to keep current on bookkeeping without being all about bookkeeping.
Benefits of Keeping Bookkeeping Current
- clean financial records from which to make a decision
- easily and quickly analyse performance
- easily tell who has paid you, and who needs to be followed up
Why owners shy away
- the bank feeds just keep coming!
- it bogs you down in bank accounts
- you have a business to run and staff to manage
Cloud Accounting
The benefits of cloud computing (and general technological advancement) mean you can get away with easy delegation of tasks. For instance instead of paper receipts, you can snap a picture of that cafe receipt, and within minutes it will be in your accounting system. There’s simply no need to keep paper anymore!
Steps for a NICE bookkeeping life
- segregate tasks so one person isn’t doing everything - spenders can snap pictures of receipts to be reconciled by a bookkeeper using cloud tools
- agree a plan for when tasks should be completed. We like the “step down” approach - if you're doing annual reporting only, then your bookkeeping should be done monthly, if like most startups you look at your finances at least weekly, then a daily process needs to be completed.
- consider external help for tasks. There are some very good bookkeeping firms, or try freelancer.com or upwork
Get in touch if you’re looking at improving your bookkeeping process, either through separating tasks, implementing cloud technologies or outsourcing bookkeeping altogether