The Ultimate Small Business Accounting Checklist

Expert advice and resources for today’s accounting professionals. Reviewing your Income Statement, or Profit and Loss Statement, at the end of each month reveals what your business earned and spent. After doing such, compare the results of this month to other months in addition to year-to-date. If you prepare a budget for your business each year, compare the statement against your budget.

Most invoices are due within 30 days, noted as “Net 30” at the bottom of your invoice. Without a due date, you will have more trouble forecasting monthly revenue. Read more about getting paid faster in our guide to getting invoices paid on time.

Review, Pay, and Record Invoice Payments: The Customer and The Vendor

Of course, your accountant will ensure that your return is error-free, but you should review it, so you know your business position and where you’re going. Take a look at your revenue, cost of sales, gross profit, and expenses. What are your top priorities for the quarter to hit your goals? Take the time to strategize and get back on course if you’ve strayed. QuickBooks, Wave, and FreshBooks are among the best accounting software for self-employed and freelancers. It will also help keep track of payroll expenses so you can make changes to your labor mix and stay within your own budgets.

The monthly bookkeeping checklist must have in the various transaction that takes places in and out of the business. And the business transaction is the outflow and inflow of the various cash like the petty cash used in the business and other areas. And the monthly bookkeeping checklist is done on the various things used in the business. And therefore download in the bookkeeping checklist for your overall issues and the things needed in the transaction. Start a suppliers file sorted alphabetically for easy access.

Daily Business Accounting Tasks

Adding tax filings to your monthly activities removes all that risk. This is also a good time to inspect your upcoming invoices to confirm that you’ve received the value you’re paying for before making payment. A big part of not letting anything slip through the cracks is updating your bookkeeping software. It can only help you as much as you keep it updated with all possible aspects of your monthly finances. A solution like Jetpack Workflow will generate more accurate reports with more useful information. Completing this daily task allows you to build a good relationship with the bank and establish a paper trail in case any questions arise about a company’s finances.

This can be done with the use of spreadsheets or an accounting software. As soon as you send billing statements and invoices to customers, make a record of it where you can easily assess the status of customers’ payment positions. If you notice a past due, send the client a friendly reminder to submit payment.

Month End Close Checklist

For those inexperienced with accounting duties, we are here to help. Below, we discuss the basics of creating a monthly bookkeeping checklist tailored to your business by exploring eight of the most important accounting tasks. Our monthly bookkeeping checklist template was carefully created to include all the necessary steps needed to accurately complete the monthly bookkeeping process for your clients. You can also customize it to fit your firm’s needs and share it with your team members.

One of the extra reports my client wants is a running total of all income so he can see on an overarching scale how the business is doing. This task hasn’t been done in the past few months for this client because we don’t discuss them every month that we meet. I want to be respectful of their time, and it’s more efficient just to do a whole bunch of them at once.

#7: Review Open Client and Vendor Deposit Report

We will help you set up bookkeeping software and walk you through the basics. This plan also provides unlimited voxer access to me for 3 months https://www.bookstime.com/articles/what-is-an-ein-number-and-does-your-business-need-one following your set up. If your business is just starting out or you can’t afford a bookkeeper using a bookkeeping template can be helpful.

• It’s important to review any past due accounts and send reminders to those customers who are late on their payments.
• Standardizing your processes through a checklist will save you from the headache that comes with inconsistent work.
• Here are some of the most common places to keep your bookkeeping checklist…
• At Remote Quality Bookkeeping, we provide cost-effective, efficient, and accurate bookkeeping services for small businesses and franchisees throughout the United States.
• Review this report to confirm your invoicing generates in a timely manner and monitor the proper distribution and application of the client’s funds.
• A cloud-based solution that makes it easy for accounting firms to manage client work, collaborate with staff, and hit their deadlines.

Suppose your small business is located in any of the 45 states that collect statewide sales tax or in the District of Columbia. Depending on when a check is deposited, it may not reflect in your account till the following day. If you have deposits in transit or outstanding checks, let your account reflect it so it all balances. Although it seems pretty obvious, this task is often overlooked, which can cause unnecessary complications or emergencies if there is no available cash to spend. You want to review how much cash you need on a month-to-month basis and make at least that much available. If you have any cash-intensive plans in the coming month, you should make allowances for that as well.

Back up your data.

Maintaining financial records requires a high degree of accuracy and attention to detail. Additionally, be sure to update your records regularly so you can catch any errors. Lastly, keep a copy of each employee’s most recent pay stubs on hand so you can reference them if any questions arise. Collectively, you can use these documents to create a trial balance. This is a listing of final balances across all of your accounts.