9 Bookkeeping Tasks You Must Do Weekly

It’s useful for business owners looking to save time and avoid common accounting errors. The two key accounting systems are cash accounting and accrual accounting. If your business is still small, you may opt for ‌cash-basis accounting. If you carry inventory or have accounts payable and accounts receivable, you’ll likely use accrual accounting.

The system you choose to use doesn’t need to be complicated and the ledgers should be straightforward, especially if you have just a few or no employees. The most important parts of doing your own bookkeeping are staying organized and keeping track of the details. At the end of the day, bookkeepers have to go through all the journal entries, and if any entry needs modification, that should be made.

Expense Tracking

Since the information gathered in bookkeeping is used by accountants and business owners, it is the basis of all the financial statements generated. Most accounting software allows you to automatically run common financial statements such as an income and expense statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement. Business owners or accountants can then use these statements to gain insight into the business’s financial health. A bookkeeper is responsible for recording daily financial transactions, updating a general ledger and preparing trial balances for perusal by accountants. They monitor cash flow and produce financial reports to assist managers in taking strategic decisions.

In case of any kind of failure, redoing the books for a month-long period is not exceedingly difficult for a small business. Also, in case you make an error, https://www.bookstime.com/articles/qualified-business-income-deduction you can restore the backup to retrieve deleted data or reenter data. Part of cash flow tracking is ensuring that there’s enough money to go around.

What is bookkeeping?

You need to be prepared to deal with anything and any queries that may arise. Any adjustments to the accounts will need to be entered using journals. There can be many reasons for journals, including accruals, prepayments, underpayments, bad debt and general professional bookkeeping service adjustments. It ensures that the stock held is equal to the stock in the accounts; if there is a difference, an adjustment by the journal can be made. Employee’s details require updating and payroll run, either on a weekly fortnight or monthly basis.

Therefore, through call, email, or other communication modes, a bookkeeper should frequently communicate with colleagues and clients. To help with producing reports, it is necessary to enter details into an Excel spreadsheet. It allows for calculations and sorting of data and can make figures easier to read. There are several different taxes, and depending on the company’s formation will depend on the taxes that need to be paid. A self-employed business will pay self-assessment tax (personal tax rather than business).

The 3 golden rules of bookkeeping to follow

So, it is simpler for bookkeepers to check bank statements in real-time and daily reconcile bank statements. Though often confused for each other, there are key differences between bookkeeping and accounting. At its core, bookkeeping is about recording financial data, while accounting is about interpreting financial data. The bookkeepers have to record business transactions into the designated accounting software to know the exact cash inflow and outflow numbers. Responsibilities for bookkeepers can vary widely from business to business, though there are a number of very common bookkeeping responsibilities. Remember that you want to tailor the role’s responsibilities in the job description so that it’s not just aligned with the position but with your company.

It’s a skill used in both large companies and small businesses, and bookkeepers are needed in just about every business and industry. Learn more about what bookkeepers do and how to get started in this career. Choose one or two days at the very beginning of each quarter to complete these tasks for the previous quarter. Filling and archiving important files and folders both digitally and physically is a vital bookkeeper’s daily task.