For small business owners, bookkeeping serves as their personal scorecard. Numbers show your success and failure and give a quantifiable shape to your business results
In a small business benefit, your future is on the line. You need to have a good overview of all the expenses and revenue. Perfect bookkeeping can save you a lot of time, money, and nerves.
To help you establish an effective bookkeeping strategy, we’ve assembled this 7-tip list. If you like assessing the numbers and want to keep crucial business matters in your own hands, bookkeeping is the way out. Let’s explore more.
Never mix personal and business finances
For an up-and-coming brand manager or CEO, it may be tempting to achieve as much as possible in as little time as possible.
The over-dynamic outlook could lead to severe financial consequences. In a lot of cases, company heads will use company money for personal expenses and vice versa. Doing so will only cause additional chaos.
When your business is only starting, spending a lot of money is an attractive thought. To prevent tax-related headaches, issue a business credit card along with a separate business account. Taking care of this takes mere minutes and allows you to earn your company a proper credit rating.
“One might find it surprising that a lot of small businesses and startups fail because of improper financial allocation,” explains Josh McCarty, a marketing and economics writer at Brilliantassignment.co.uk. “Separate your finances because mistakes will happen once your business grows.”
Make use of automation
Bookkeeping was once considered a difficult and time-consuming activity. Accountants and bookkeepers had to do everything manually, but a lot has changed in recent years. With the development of AI technology and automated software, bookkeeping has never been easier. There are no more tedious instances of manually creating spreadsheets.
Bookkeeping software makes our lives easier. For one, the data you need is stored in the cloud. Unlike physical storage, cloud storage is safe from any compromising.
No matter the conditions or situation, your data will be stored safely. In addition to this initial security feature, small businesses should immediately connect their banking accounts to bookkeeping software.
By establishing this connection, you will ensure that your books are up to date and that there is no need for last minute checks.
Do regular check-ups
Most bookkeepers and companies keep track of their reports and records on a quarterly basis. A tip that will make your life easier is to check your reports on a weekly basis. The interval here will give you enough time to grow your business, but you’ll also be able to identify any changes in your revenue.
Having a clear overview of your transactions and the overall financial state is a business advantage you deserve to have.
With each new product launch or a promotion, you can see how good the move was by looking at the reports. By analyzing reports from a certain period, you can see if a move was successful or not. If it was, you can repeat it and invest more money or stop implementing it if it was a failure.
Use tracking software to monitor your employees’ hours
Running a small business can face you against some hardships. If you have a dedicated team of employees, tracking their hours might be somewhat difficult manually.
Without knowing exactly how much has someone worked, you risk budgets deficits, imprecise payments and other spending that you don’t need. To prevent this from happening, have your entire small business use time tracking software.
Employees will also find the change refreshing. With time tracking software, they will know exactly how much they’re being owed and when they have vacation time and what was their sick time.
Bookkeeping will be much easier, and your small business will grow exponentially. Integrate the tracking software and the time tracking software for ultimate efficiency and swiftness.
Always track business expenses
Brand growth is something everyone wants to feel, but not to experience. Why is this the case? When small businesses grow, there is another echelon of responsibilities that you have to take over.
Business expenses are just one of them. Even though you might feel good about having a bigger budget, you will find it annoying to file tax reports. Overspending is often a case, and precisely because of that, you need to track your business expenses.
When traveling, make sure you keep every receipt and categorize it accordingly. There are several apps that allow you to scan the receipts and store them on the cloud.
The move might seem simple, but it’s a bookkeeping tip that every small business can’t survive without. By tracking your business expenses, managing your budget and filing tax reports will be much easier.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help
At the beginning of every company’s life, you can most certainly handle all numbers by using off-the-shelf software. However, once you start experiencing growth, you might feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of tasks needed.
Keeping track of everything is important, but many companies tend to shut down because they’re hesitant to hire a professional.
Although it may seem like hiring a professional bookkeeper is unnecessary spending, it’s a massive benefit that can save you a whole fortune. Letting a professional handle your bookkeeping will free up valuable time you can use to focus on making your business grow. Associating yourself with a professional is an investment for the future.
Have your deadlines and tax obligations in a visible place
Bookkeeping is both monitoring the growth of your company and working from deadline to deadline. From tax reports to building business credit, it’s always beneficial.
Tax reports have to be filed, but even the most important deadlines can be missed if you’re overwhelmed. Thus, before undertaking anything new, you should write down all upcoming deadlines and obligations.
Having visible dates will allow you to run your small business without unnecessary stress. Additionally, missing deadlines and ignoring obligations will only bring you problems with the law.
The IRS has many useful tools for calibrating your calendar. If you’re more of an old-fashioned person, you can write them down on a piece of paper. Knowing your deadlines allows you to plan accordingly and increase revenue.
To conclude
Every small business relies on impeccable bookkeeping. Implementing these tips will require minimal effort and bring you maximal results. Remember to always be organized, prepared, and aware of upcoming deadlines. With recent developments in technology, you will rely on software to do the heavy lifting. Just by implementing these tips, you will ensure a fast and beneficial period of business growth.
Guest Post: About the Author
Scott Mathews is a professional content writer in such topics as bookkeeping, work productivity and marketing. Scott`s the biggest passion is blogging and travelling. He regularly takes part in different career growth conferences and contributes his posts to different websites. Contact him on Facebook and Twitter.