Bookkeeping 101 for Small Business Owners
Understanding bookkeeping will save time and money, and help you acquire and retain clients. Learn more about how to get your bookkeeping done right.
Understanding bookkeeping will save time and money, and help you acquire and retain clients. Learn more about how to get your bookkeeping done right.
The very coupling of “bookkeeping” and “101” suggests ease and simplicity for small business owners. This sounds ideal in theory, but in practice, it’s sometimes an alternate reality.
Understanding the fundamentals of bookkeeping will save time, help you acquire and retain clients, and ultimately make you money.
SMEs can often be characterised as being “resource-poor”, “time-poor”, “boutique” and “hands-on”. With little room for wastage, it’s essential for SMEs to ensure that their approach to bookkeeping is done right.
Just what is bookkeeping 101? Bookkeeping 101 is the recording and classifying of financial transactions within a business. It’s so important to get it right.
Small business owners need bookkeeping, chiefly to ensure that they are making more money than they are spending. Having reliable and accurate bookkeeping information at their fingertips also helps to pinpoint any errors, discrepancies or even potentially fraudulent practices that could prove disruptive or even disastrous to a small business.
Keeping on top of your bookkeeping also means that tax returns can be completed promptly and accurately.
Good bookkeeping offers a range of benefits that are designed to save time and money.
Bookkeeping for small business owners makes it easier to plan and predict your future financial needs. This includes more effortless tax predictions.
Good bookkeeping also provides transparency for banks and lenders to help fast-track loans and ultimately engender better long-term business relationships.
In addition, bookkeeping is less expensive than accounting, but offers similar benefits. These include enabling faster response times to sudden market changes and shortens the time taken by accountants to analyse your financial statements.
It’s important for small business owners to keep up to date with incoming and outgoing payments. It’ll help you with everything from referrals to growth projections.
Think of bookkeeping 101 as the engine room for your small business financials. Small business owners need to know what is owed, what is due and importantly what is overdue.
Start by choosing the right software for your bookkeeping and accounting needs. There are plenty of options tailored for small business needs, from Xero to QuickBooks.
The best bookkeeping software should allow small business owners to extract transaction data from their point-of-sale system, including invoicing software and banking data.
In doing so, this is designed to fast-track bank reconciliations and provides the ability to automatically pay bills prior to their due date, to avoid overdue statements.
Did you know that bookkeeping software can also send digital invoice reminders to clients who still owe you money? Just as beneficial, it can alert the small business owner to when invoices have been paid, allowing for financial freedom and accountability.
With the right bookkeeping software, small business owners can even check their cashflow and other financial components directly from their smartphone or electronic device.
Already have your bookkeeping software set up, or you’ve got such a plan in the works?
Don’t stop there. Take the digital transformation further, and digitise your payments platform as well. If you’re an SME that accepts recurring direct debit payments from your customers, we’ve got the perfect payments platform for you.
Payleadr is tailored for small business needs and customisable according to how you want to accept payments.
Establishing the right digital platforms is crucial for streamlining your payment and accounting requirements. Adopting a customised direct debit system helps you to follow the lead of what payments are incoming and outgoing. This offers financial support designed to be flexible and safeguards the financial wellbeing of small businesses.
Payleadr offers a seamless transition for taking your online accounting and payment systems into the new era. These processes help small business owners keep track of their all-important records — allowing them to get on with the job.
To get started, call us today on (02) 9030 0309 or reach out to our team online.
